Roving Mars: Almost Like Being There

If you live anywhere near an IMAX theater, it is well worth the trip to see the newly released Disney production, "Roving Mars". Made specially for the 6-story high IMAX screen and surround- sound experience, it is, as one would expect for an armchair interplanetary journey, a visually breathtaking adventure. Apart from the visuals, interspersed with real still photos snapped by the mars rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity", even more impressive is the up close and personal emotional triumph of the engineering undertaking itself, highlighted most effectively with portrayals of the elation felt by the staff of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as that history-making "first signal" emerged from the nerve-racking silence of the control center when "Spirit" touched down intact. After a string of disappointments (two thirds of all Mars ventures ended in failure), it had to be sweat. "Roving Mars" is playing in most IMAX theaters everywhere.

Planet Pluto: Within Our Reach

"Space travel" has a deeper meaning these days. Celebrities and businessmen are dishing out their millions for a trip to space, while mention of space travel agencies and even talk of tourist trips going around the moon starting in 2008 seem to be the wave of the future. But on the other side of the spectrum, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are looking farther into space -- not to the Earth's moon, but to Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

While a trip to our moon takes a few days depending upon the spacecraft, the four-billion-mile journey to reach the ninth planet and its moon will take a total of 10 years.

The New Horizons spacecraft, which is the first mission of NASA's New Frontiers program to explore other planets, was launched Jan. 19 at 2 p.m. EST. The spacecraft is controlled by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Aerospace Engineering Prof. Jim Andary is the Chief System Engineer for the Missions System Engineering Branch at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

"The New Horizons spacecraft was the fastest spacecraft to leave the earth ... it set a record," Andary said."It went past the moon in nine hours."..........

The Cavalier Daily

Moon is Dragging Continents West

Someday not so soon Washington, D.C., may find itself about where San Francisco is now. According to a recent study, Earth's surface may be slipping slowly westward, dragged by the same lunar forces that produce tides..........

National Geographic News

New Planet Discovered

Astronomers on Wednesday announced the discovery of what is possibly the smallest planet known outside our solar system orbiting a normal star.
Its orbit is farther from its host star than Earth is from the sun. Most known extrasolar planets reside inside the equivalent of Mercury’s orbit.
The planet is estimated to be about 5.5 times as massive as Earth and thought to be rocky. It orbits a red dwarf star about 28,000 light-years away. Red dwarfs are about one-fifth as massive as the sun and up to 50 times fainter. But they are among the most common stars in the universe...........

MSNBC

Stardust Space Cargo a Big Hit

Scientists say they're thrilled and awed by their first glimpse at the comet particles and samples of interstellar dust returned by the Stardust spacecraft..........

National Geographic News

Capsule With Comet Dust Recovered

Special helicopter-borne teams secured and recovered the capsule, containing tens of thousands of comet grains and as many as 100 bits of interstellar dust, shortly after it landed. The capsule was moved to a clean room at the Air Force’s Utah Testing and Training Range, where a canister containing the collector grid was to be extracted and shipped to the Johnson Space Center in Houston later this week..........

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Orion Nebula: A New High Resolution Image

If beauty is in the details, this is one of the most beautiful pictures ever made. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has captured one of the most detailed astronomical images in history. Released yesterday, the original of this Orion Nebula image is a mosaic of a billion pixels..........

National Geographic News

Another Galaxy Merging with Milky Way

A previously unrecognized galaxy appears to be merging with the Milky Way, bringing hundreds of thousands of stars into our home galaxy that no one has noticed until now, astronomers said..........

New York Times

Astronomers Measure the Most Distant Moon

An international team of astronomers says the most distant moon in the Solar System, Charon, which orbits Pluto, is an icy rock that has no sign of an atmosphere..........

Yahoo News