Sometimes it takes a prize to really propel an industry forward, like with the historic Orteig Prize, which rewarded Charles Lindbergh $25,000 for crossing the Atlantic by airplane. In its most recent budget, NASA has set aside some budget to reward groups who accomplish certain milestones. The agency will be holding a workshop on June 15-16 in Washington D.C. to gather ideas and brainstorm on what kinds of goals will leverage this budget the furthest.
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The team responsible for the MARSIS radar instrument on Mars Express has advised the ESA to put off the deployment of its radar booms. Currently, the booms are folded up like accordions against the side of the spacecraft, and they're designed to spring into 20-metre hollow cylinders. New and improved computer simulations show that they could swing more wildly when deployed than originally predicted, and potentially damage parts of the spacecraft. MARSIS will study the sub-surface of Mars to a depth of a few kilometres, and should reveal underground reservoirs of water or ice.
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This latest true colour image of Saturn taken by Cassini completely fills the field of view of the spacecraft's narrow angle camera. The photo was taken on March 27, when the spacecraft was 47.7 million kilometres away from the Ringed Planet. Subtle colour variations are visible across the planet, from the atmospheric bands to the rings. Cassini will reach the planet in July 2004.
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The newest photo released by the European Southern Observatory shows an enormous collision on a galactic scale. Two galaxies, NGC 6769 on the right, and NGC 6770 on the left are locked in orbit around each other, and exchanging stars and dust. Although this is destructive to both galaxies, the bluish tint to the spiral arms indicates massive amounts of star formation in fertile galactic nurseries.
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NASA's Spirit Rover took some new panoramic images of the "Columbia Hills", still a distant 2 kilometres, and 52 days away. Once Spirit reaches the base of the hills, operators will have the rover analyze the composition of the terrain and then decide whether to have Spirit actually climb one of the mountains and look for exposed outcroppings of rock. These areas would offer scientists a series of windows into the processes that shaped the formation of this part of Mars.
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NASA has checked out its recently launched Gravity Probe B spacecraft, and everything seems to be working fine. The solar panels are producing enough power to run all of its electrical systems, and its communications systems are talking to operators on the ground. All four gyro suspension systems have been activated, and the gyros are now being prepared to gather scientific data. If all goes well, the spacecraft should confirm two predictions that Einstein made about general relativity: how the Earth bends space and time around it, and how it drags space and time as it rotates.
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New observations show that Arctic sea ice isn't completely static; it undergoes back and forth motions twice a day, no matter how cold the weather gets. Researchers used Canada's RADARSAT Earth observation satellite to image the Arctic region up to five times a day. It found that the ice moved back and forth during a 12-hour cycle, caused by the Earth's rotation. This movement could create increased ice formation as the icepack thins, and prevent depletion of the icecaps.
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Four planets are gathering in the night time sky, and the view is spectacular. On the evening of April 22, look to the West just after it's starting to get dark; you'll see Venus blazing away just above a delicate crescent Moon. Mars is just above Venus, and Saturn is still higher. If you turn to the East, the brightest object in that direction is Jupiter. On Friday, the Moon will instead be beside Mars, and then beside Saturn on Saturday. To really enjoy the experience, get your hands on a telescope and see these incredible objects up close with your own eyes.
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The giant Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico - already the largest and most sensitive single dish in the world - is getting an upgrade, which should make it even more powerful. In the past, Arecibo had the ability to look at one spot in the sky at a time, and so it took many observations to build up a comprehensive image. The newly attached ALFA (Arecibo L-Band Feed Array) works like a camera to let the observatory look at seven times the area in the same amount of time. This should dramatically speed up Arecibo's ability to gather data, and let it search for rarer objects, like pulsars orbiting black holes.
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The latest image of Saturn released from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows the Ringed Planet in four wavelengths: ultraviolet, visible blue, far red, and near infrared. The images were taken over the course of 20 minutes, and each one reveals a different aspect of Saturn's cloud cover and rings; probing the planet's atmosphere at different depths. When this photo was taken, Cassini was 44.5 million kilometres from Saturn and closing. It will reach the planet in July.
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We do live. We age. We move. Time is how we refer to the transfer of ourselves from our beginning to end. Space is how we scale things through our primary sense of vision. Using the scientific method we can define iota that are so incredibly abstract as to be partly in our universe and partly somewhere else. We are also pretty sure that as we have a beginning and end so does the universe in which we live. Much of the basis from which we draw this understanding is directly attributable to Albert Einstein. In Michio Kaku's book, Einstein's Cosmos, How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time we are taken on a wonderful brief journey through Einstein's life and the development of his theories that establish this basis.
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To celebrate the 14th anniversary of its launch, the operators of the Hubble Space Telescope have released this image of a ring of star clusters wrapped around the core of a spiral galaxy - and I've turned it into a 1024x768 desktop wallpaper. The galaxy is called AM 0644-741, and it's located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado. The galaxy's unusual shape was caused by a collision between two galaxies, which threw out stars and dust like ripples in a pond. The shockwaves heated up this material, which began an intense period of star formation.
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Jupiter's stormy surface could be settling down, according to calculations by UC Berkeley physicist Philip Marcus. According to Marcus, Jupiter's temperature and the number of storms on its surface are directly connected. As the number of vortices decrease, its temperature should go up by about 10-degrees Celsius - warmer near the equator and cooler near the poles. This cycle seems to repeat itself about every 70 years. But don't worry; the Great Red Spot isn't going anywhere.
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NASA satellites have been used to create an 18-year record of temperatures on the Earth's surface, and not surprisingly, they're going up. So far, the data shows that global average temperatures are going up approximately 0.43 Celsius/decade; by comparison, ground station data only shows a rise of 0.34 C. This is an average, though, so different regions of the Earth are seeing greater or lesser temperature increases. These new readings should help scientists make better predictions about the future of the Earth's environment.
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A special NASA spacecraft designed to test two aspects of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, Gravity Probe B, lifted off Tuesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on board a Boeing Delta II rocket. The spacecraft was inserted into a perfectly circular polar orbit, and operators will begin calibrating its instruments over the next 60-days. If everything checks out, the spacecraft will begin making precise measurements about the effect of the Earth's gravity for 12 months - analysis of the data will take a further year.
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The latest image released from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows the monstrous power of a supernova. The image is of SNR 0540-69.3, a remnant of a supernova that blew up 160,000 light-years away. The centre of the image is the rapidly rotating neutron star, which spins 20 times/second, and generates the same amount of energy as 30,000 Suns. The supernova is believed to have exploded within a cloud of gas, so this created a super hot shell of material that surrounds the object, which blazes in the X-ray spectrum.
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By chasing dust devils across the desert with a specially equipped truck, scientists have discovered that on Earth at least, they can generate a high-voltage electric field. This has implications for future exploration on Mars since much larger dust devils crisscross the surface of the Red Planet. This situation happens because the dust particles in the mini-twister rub together and become charged; the negative particles are carried high into the air while the positive particles stay lower down. Future robotic missions to Mars will hope to measure the strength and danger these electric devils might pose down the road.
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"It figures that if there was only one rock for what seems like miles in every direction, we'd find a way to hit it," said Steven Squyres, the principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover mission. He was describing an unusual object, later called "Bounce Rock" that Spirit bounced off of during its airbag landing. Scientists were split over whether this unusual object was a rock at all - they thought it could have been a piece of Spirit's landing equipment, or maybe even a meteorite. But when Spirit finally analyzed it up close, the case was closed: it's a rock that was probably blasted out of an impact crater 50 km away.
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Astronomers have used the enormous Keck telescope to capture several images of the hydrocarbon haze of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, and piece them together into a short movie. These observations will help scientists make sense of the data that the Huygens probe sends back as it descends through Titan's unusual atmosphere in early 2005 and hopefully survives to land on its surface. Titan is interesting because its atmosphere is very similar to conditions that probably existed early on Earth.
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NASA has reported this week that a rock analyzed by Spirit bears a resemblance to a meteorite found in Antarctica. The meteorite is called EETA79001, and it's known to be from Mars because of gases preserved in glassy material match the chemical composition of the Martian atmosphere. The basalt lava rock "Bounce", recently analyzed by Spirit, has a very similar composition to EETA79001. They have different amounts of a chemical called pyroxene, so they didn't come from the same impact event, but probably formed in a similar fashion on Mars.
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Astronomers have watched how the gravity of a star bends the light from a more distant star to discover a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting it. The technique is called gravitational microlensing, and in this case, the astronomers carefully measured the brightness of a star 17,000 light-years away which was focusing the light from a star located 24,000 light-years away. They realized that there was a regular pattern of brightening and dimming which meant there were two objects working together to focus the light. Further calculations indicated that it was a planet with approximately the mass of Jupiter making the fluctuations.
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An Atlas 2AS rocket launched from Florida's Cape Canaveral on Friday morning, carrying a Japanese Superbird-6 communications satellite into orbit. The rocket lifted off at 0045 UTC (8:45 pm EDT, April 15), and the satellite was released into its transfer orbit 30 minutes later. Superbird-6 will provide video and data services across much of the Asia-Pacific region. Atlas 2AS rockets will only launch two more times before the vehicle is retired.
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Researchers from the University of Chicago are analyzing hundreds of meteorite fragments that struck Park Forest, Ill. in the evening of March 26, 2003. Witnesses in several states saw the tremendous fireball when it struck last year, and volunteers eventually collected 30 kg of fragments; some that crashed through the roofs of their houses. It's believed that the original meteor weighed 900 kg when it exploded in the sky. The heavier pieces fell nearly straight down, and the lighter pieces were carried downwind a bit to create a huge swath of fragments.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft is now close enough to Saturn that it's able to resolve the two F-ring-shepherding moons: Prometheus and Pandora. Prometheus is 102 km across, and Pandora is 84 km across, and they interact with Saturn's outermost ring causing clumps and other unusual formations. They have very chaotic orbits, which can change unpredictably when they get close to each other. The moons were originally discovered by Voyager 1 in 1980, and follow-up observations have been made by the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Astronomers will have a powerful new tool for finding extrasolar planets on Friday, when SuperWASP, a new observatory in the Canary Islands, begins operations. SuperWASP has an extremely wide field of view (2000 times larger than a regular telescope) and is able to measure the brightness of hundreds of thousands of stars. It will take enormous surveys of the sky every night, which astronomers will process with a computer. They'll be looking for stars which dim slightly on a regular basis, which would indicate planets passing in front.
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One of the problems of sending humans to Mars will be how to let them explore the surface of the planet without having to carry tons of fuel from Earth. Fortunately, there's a potential source of fuel right on the surface of the planet: magnesium. Researchers from the University of Michigan have performed zero-gravity experiments that demonstrated that magnesium will burn perfectly well in a carbon dioxide atmosphere as long as you use iodine catalyst. It works even better in microgravity - Mars has 1/3rd the gravity of Earth.
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Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens was born on April 14, 1629; exactly 375 years ago. He was an influential astronomer who improved on Galileo's original telescope design by developing new techniques to grind and polish lenses. With his improved telescope, Huygens was able to resolve the rings of Saturn better than anyone at the time, and realize their true shape as rings. He also discovered Titan, Saturn's largest moon. He died in 1695.
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After the announcement of Sedna last month, the solar system's furthest object, astronomers have had the opportunity to look at it better with the Hubble Space Telescope. Sedna's discoverer, Mike Brown from Caltech, was sure it also had a moon, but these new observations didn't turn anything up. This is unusual because Sedna's rotation takes 20 days instead of a few hours like most other asteroids - usually it's a moon that slows down an object's rotation. Based on Hubble's observations, astronomers believe Sedna is no larger than 1,770 km across (3/4 the size of Pluto).
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The European Southern Observatory has released the most detailed images ever taken of the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. The images were taken using a new instrument called the Simultaneous Differential Imager (SDI), which was originally designed to help image extrasolar planets. The images show a number of surface regions with different reflectivity, including several dark areas with very low reflectivity, which could be huge reservoirs of liquid hydrocarbons. Scientists will get a better look when the Huygens probe arrives in early 2005.
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With the announcement that the twin Mars Exploration Rovers have had their missions extended, scientists and engineers have big plans for the robots. The extended mission for Spirit will see the rover make the journey to the distant Columbia Hills. Opportunity will make a similarly long series of drives to reach Endurance Crater and then to some unusual "etched terrain" further to the South. One short term goal will be for the rovers to calibrate the dusty Martian skies by pointing their panoramic cameras up while overhead satellites look down.
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Techniques that helped sequence the human genome over the last decade could help researchers prove, once and for all, if life ever existed on Mars. Researchers from UC Berkeley have sampled the dry, irradiated soil in Chile's Atacama Desert, which could be a similar situation on Mars, and used techniques that study DNA to search for evidence of amino acids. An instrument that uses this technique, called the Mars Organic Analyzer, could be built into future rovers. It was able to detect the presence of life in the Atacama soil - we'll see if it'll work on Mars.
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The latest image released from the Spitzer Space Telescope shows an incredible stellar nursery which is so enshrouded in dust that no visible light escapes it. This region, called DR21, is a nest of giant newborn stars located about 10,000 light-years away in the Cygnus constellation of our Milky Way galaxy. Previous observations in visible and radio wavelengths indicated that something hidden was producing incredibly powerful jets of material, but nothing more was known until now.
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The Moon is definitely not made of cheese, though viewing it can be much more rewarding than nibbling on cheese. Its many unique features with descriptors like rilles, craterlets, and wrinkles give a certain closeness to our nearest satellite. The "Moon Observer's Guide", by Peter Grego defines these, pinpoints where they occur on the Moon's surface and then adds the familial names for easy reference. You might want to bring cheese when viewing the Moon at night but also bring this book as it certainly will guide you.
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The first of two 8.4 metre mirrors has been installed into the Large Binocular Telescope, which will become one of the world's most powerful telescopes. The 16 tonne mirror made the 240 km journey from Tucson, Arizona to the top of Mount Graham. Technicians are now testing the mirror support system hardware and software. Once the second mirror is installed, the combined light-gathering power will make the LBT the equivalent of an 11.8 metre telescope - it should be able to produce images 10 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope.
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NASA has extended the mission for its Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, after Spirit met the success criteria for its mission. It spent a total of 90 days roaming the surface of Mars, and traveled a total distance of 600 metres. Opportunity will achieve its successful mission on April 26. This extension includes an additional $15 million in funding to keep operating the rovers until September. Even though the mission has been approved until then, the rovers could last much longer on the surface of Mars.
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Scientists from the University of Arizona have developed a handy calculator that you can use to determine your fate in the event of an asteroid impact. This tool takes into account not only the size of the asteroid and its composition, but what it slams into. It calculates the blast, depth of ejecta, and the force of the air blast at a distance from ground zero. Now you can see if you'll be safe from the devastation of an asteroid strike, or if you'll need to hop in your car and drive... far.
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Are there any contigencies currently in place to stop an asteroid from hitting if say one was detected to hit within days, weeks, months, years? - Damien Igoe, Alice Springs, Australia
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Here's a beautiful 1024x768 desktop wallpaper of a series of sapping channels on Mars called Louros Valles. On the right side of the image is the Ius Chasma canyon, which has dark deposits at the bottom that could be related to wind and water erosion (North is to the right in this image). The image was taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft at an altitude of 269 kilometres during its 97th orbit.
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Scientists have known for a long time now that the Earth's magnetic field unexpectedly reverses polarity over long periods of time, but how often this happens was still a mystery. Brad Clement, a geologist funded by the National Science Foundation, has concluded that the reversal seems to happen every 7,000 years, on average. He gathered this data by analyzing deep-ocean sediment cores. One surprise is that the variation seems to alter with latitude - the directional change takes half as long at low-latitude sites as it does at mid- to high-latitude sites.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft continues its approach to Saturn, and its latest images show incredible detail of two storms in the act of merging. The storms were both at least 1,000 km wide, and they were moving westward across the surface of the planet, relative to its rotation. After about a month of dancing, the storms actually merged on March 19-20, and the new storm now sits almost stationary on the surface of the planet. Saturn is the windiest planet in the Solar System, and the reason for these winds is one of the mysteries that scientists hope to solve with Cassini.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has been focused to peer deep into the heart of nearby galaxy NGC 300, and revealed the stars as individual points of light; even though it's 6.5 million light-years away. Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys has resolved the galaxy 10 times better than ground-based telescopes, which can only see the brightest individual stars.
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The book, "Practical Astronomy", by Storm Dunlop, is a wonderful beginner's guide that brings order to the multitude of light sources in the night sky. In easy to understand descriptions and photographs you can learn to identify zodiacal lights, emission nebulae and of course the major constellations. This is an easy to use, easy to carry reference to help plan for and get the most out of your evening's sky watching.
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NASA's Aura satellite - the latest in a series of Earth observing spacecraft - arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base this week to be prepared for its June launch. Aura has four instruments which will study the chemistry and dynamics of the Earth's atmosphere to provide scientists with data about ozone levels, air quality and climate change. Aura will undergo final tests and then be mated to the top of its Boeing Delta II rocket.
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The Sun is heating up, and in 4 billion years from now it will swell up to become a red giant - Earth and the rest of the inner planets will be destroyed. But the deadly conditions that destroy the Earth will mean warmer temperatures in the outer Solar System, possibly supporting life. The region from Saturn to Pluto will warm up to the point that frozen water will melt on moons and planets. Scientists think the best chances for life will be found on Pluto and its moon Charon as well as Neptune's moon Triton because they're rich in organic chemicals.
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