Deep Impact Spacecraft Detects Comet Outbursts

NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft observed a massive, short-lived outburst of ice or other particles from comet Tempel 1 that temporarily expanded the size and reflectivity of the cloud of dust and gas (coma) that surrounds the comet nucleus.

The outburst was detected as a dramatic brightening of the comet on June 22. It is the second of two such events observed in the past two weeks. A smaller outburst also was seen on June 14 by Deep Impact, the Hubble Space Telescope and by ground based observers..........Read More

ScienceDaily June 29, 2005

Solar Sails Set to Debut

The Planetary Society, a U.S. nonprofit group devoted to space exploration, plans to launch the world's first solar sail spacecraft tomorrow.
Cosmos 1 will be launched from a submerged Russian submarine in the Barents Sea and carried into orbit by a converted intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
Initially orbiting the Earth at an altitude of about 500 miles (800 kilometers), the spacecraft will gradually move outward by solar sailing—propelled by the pressure of light particles from the sun striking the craft's eight triangular sails.
The journey has no destination. The mission's goal is simply to prove that solar sail technology works.
Space sails carry no fuel and can continue accelerating over almost unlimited distances. This prompts scientists to envision a time when the technology may be used for future travel between planets in our solar system. Someday solar sails might be used to send astronauts to new worlds around other stars..........

National Geographic News, June 20, 2005 Read More

A New Planet Outside Our Solar System

A planet that may be Earth-like -- but too hot for life as we know it -- has been discovered orbiting a nearby star. The discovery of the planet, with an estimated radius about twice that of Earth, was announced yesterday at the National Science Foundation. "This is the smallest extrasolar planet yet detected and the first of a new class of rocky terrestrial planets," Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution in Washington said in a statement. "It's like Earth's bigger cousin." Read More

TechNewsWorld June 14, 2005

Volcano on Titan

A recent flyby of Saturn's hazy moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft has revealed evidence of a possible volcano, which could be a source of methane in Titan's atmosphere.

Images taken in infrared light show a circular feature roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) in diameter that does not resemble any features seen on Saturn's other icy moons. Scientists interpret the feature as an "ice volcano," a dome formed by upwelling icy plumes that release methane into Titan's atmosphere..........

ScienceDaily, June 11, 2005 Read More

Image of Dust Disk and Black Hole

Resembling a gigantic hubcap in space, a 3,700-light-year-wide dust disk encircles a 300-million- solar-mass black hole in the center of the elliptical galaxy NGC 7052.

The disk, possibly a remnant of an ancient galaxy collision, will be swallowed up by the black hole in several billion years. The black-and-white image on the left, taken by a ground-based telescope, shows the complete galaxy. The Hubble picture on the right is a close-up view of the dust disk surrounding the black hole..........

See the website for the amazing photo image and other images produced by the Hubble Space Telescope.

A New Mission to Mars

NASA has given the green light to a project to put a long-armed lander on to the icy ground of the far-northern Martian plains. NASA's Phoenix lander is designed to examine the site for potential habitats for water ice, and to look for possible indicators of life, past or present..........

NASA News, June 2, 2005

A Deep Impact Encounter on the Horizon

On July 4, NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft will attempt an extraordinarily daring encounter with the far-flung comet Tempel 1, which is hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour. As if that is not challenging enough, the comet's size, shape and other characteristics are not entirely known..........

ScienceDaily, June 2, 2005

Space Telescope Reveals Striking Scene

The saga of how a few monstrous stars spawned a diverse community of additional stars is told in a new image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The striking picture reveals an eclectic mix of embryonic stars living in the tattered neighborhood of one of the most famous massive stars in our Milky Way galaxy, Eta Carinae. Astronomers say that radiation and winds from Eta Carinae and its massive siblings ripped apart the surrounding cloud of gas and dust, shocking the new stars into being..........

ScienceDaily, June 1, 2005 Read More