Mysterious Spot on Titan

Saturn's moon Titan shows an unusual bright spot that has scientists mystified. The spot, approximately the size and shape of West Virginia, is just southeast of the bright region called Xanadu and is visible to multiple instruments on the Cassini spacecraft. The 483-kilometer-wide (300-mile) region may be a "hot" spot -- an area possibly warmed by a recent asteroid impact or by a mixture of water ice and ammonia from a warm interior, oozing out of an ice volcano onto colder surrounding terrain. Other possibilities for the unusual bright spot include landscape features holding clouds in place or unusual materials on the surface..........

ScienceDaily, May 25, 2005 Read More

Another New Planet

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An international collaboration featuring Ohio State University astronomers has detected a planet in a solar system that, at roughly 15,000 light years from Earth, is one of the most distant ever discovered. In a time when technology is starting to make such finds almost commonplace, this new planet -- which is roughly three times the size of Jupiter -- is special for several reasons, said Andrew Gould, professor of astronomy at Ohio State . The technique that astronomers used to find the planet worked so well that he thinks it could be used to find much smaller planets -- Earth-sized planets, even very distant ones.
And because two amateur astronomers in New Zealand helped detect the planet using only their backyard telescopes, the find suggests that anyone can become a planet hunter..........

ScienceDaily, May 26, 2005 Read More

Flying Whales and Other Alien Life Forms

One side of the planet is draped in eternal freezing darkness, the other side is bathed in permanent starlight. Fields of "stinger fans"—animals that look like tall plants—cover the floodplains. Other strange species abound, from giraffe-like predators called gulphogs to tiny flesh-dissolving tadpoles known as hysteria.

Welcome to the planet Aurelia.

No, we haven't discovered life on another world—yet. But this could be what life on the fringes of our galaxy looks like, according to a group of scientists that contributed to the National Geographic Channel's special Extraterrestrial, which premieres Monday, May 30. Alien life is not just possible but probable, according to many scientists. And thanks to new technology, we may not be too far from finding it..........

National Geographic News, May 20, 2005 Read More

Voyager Enters a New Frontier

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the solar system's final frontier. It is entering a vast, turbulent expanse, where the sun's influence ends and the solar wind crashes into the thin gas between stars........

ScienceDaily, May 25, 2005 Read More

Martian Ice Cap Mystery Explained

CORVALLIS, Ore. (May 11, 2005) -- An interdisciplinary team of scientists thinks it has an answer to a long-standing mystery of why the permanent icecap on Mars' South Pole is offset from the pole itself. Simply put, it's colder and stormier in that hemisphere.

But that is only part of the equation, scientists say, and new understanding about Mars' climate and its polar regions may suggest clues to finding water in the planet's equatorial zone - where it would be easier to land a spacecraft - and opening the door to future exploration and the search for life..........

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ScienceDaily, May 19, 2005

Beginning a New Era of Space Flight

The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), currently known as the Orbital Space Plane, looks to be the cornerstone of President Bush's new initiative for a return to the moon and beyond. Once the larger components for the International Space Station (ISS) are in place, the space shuttle will be phased out in favor of the newer, lighter CEV.........

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Map of Life On Earth Could Be Used On Mars

May 9, 2005 — A geologist from Washington University in St. Louis is developing new techniques to render a more coherent story of how primitive life arose and diverged on Earth — with implications for Mars.........

-- ScienceDaily, May 13, 2005

A New Moon Near Saturn

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has spotted a previously unseen moon hiding in a gap between Saturn's rings, the space agency said Tuesday.
The newfound moon, which astronomers are calling S/2005 S1 for now, was first photographed on May 1 and is just 4 miles in diameter. Its discovery comes on the heels of an announcement last week that astronomers using ground-based telescopes in Hawaii had detected 12 other moons around Saturn.............

Amit Asaravala, Wired News, May 10, 2005 Read More

Birth of a Black Hole Detected for the First Time

Associated Press
GREENBELT, Md. — The birth of a black hole has been captured for the first time, a NASA scientist said Monday. NASA's Swift orbiting observatory detected the gamma ray burst of the collision between two dense neutron stars about early Monday and pointed its visible light and X-ray telescopes at the collision about a minute later, said Neil Gehrels, lead scientist for the Swift mission.........

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Earth-like Planets on Our Discovery Horizon?

Ten years after finding the first planet outside our solar system, scientists say they may be ready to move into a new phase of planetary exploration - one that examines distant worlds for signs of Earth-like life.

So far, astronomers have discovered some 145 so-called extrasolar planets orbiting stars besides our sun..........

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Some Amazing Sites for Views of Our Universe

Interested in some very amazing views of our Solar System and the Universe at large? Try these sites: space.com and rc-astro.com. They're an eye-full.

Storms on Saturn Converge

Three months before Saturn arrival, the Cassini spacecraft has observed two storms in the act of merging into one larger storm. This is only the second time this phenomenon has been observed on the ringed planet.......

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