News Headlines for February 2001

Fiber cut silences SETI@Home If you've been wondering why you haven't been able to return your SETI@Home units for the last day, here's why... Martian life debate intensifies See also: New evidence strengthens claims of ancient life on Mars and Magnetic Chains from Mars The scientific team that claimed in 1996 to have found fossilised bacteria in a Martian meteorite are back with yet more evidence to support their work. NEAR left for dead on Eros See also: The End of an Asteroidal Adventure - NEAR Shoemaker Phones Home for the Last Time and A Conversation With...Bobby Williams, Navigation Chief A NASA probe on the surface of a deep space asteroid will be cut off from contact with Earth on Wednesday, following a brief reprieve in which scientists squeezed out additional data from an onboard instrument. Staying Sane In Deep Space Brown University recently received a three-year, $638,000 grant to develop a system to monitor the cognitive abilities of astronauts during a proposed NASA manned mission to Mars in 2020. 'Stop monster! Show us your spectrum!' One must admit that spectra, the many-varied curves that plot the number of photons and their energy, appear to be rather uninspiring to the layman; nothing worse than a graph. But like one’s body temperature curve, they mean a lot. NASA's new budget increases launch money See also: Proposal scraps Mars mission plan and Memo puts NASA projects on hold The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's $14.5 billion budget for 2002 represents a small increase for NASA but a giant leap in funding for its program to develop new ways to launch things into space. Hubble Zooms In on Bar of Favourite Spring Spiral Galaxy Astronomers have long suspected that the bar systems that dominate the appearance of some spiral galaxies provide an efficient mechanism for fuelling star births at their centres. New results from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope provide evidence that this is indeed the case. Case for life on Mars withstands criticism, gains scientific support See also: Microbial Life Existed on Mars, Say Scientists and 'Conclusive evidence' for Martian life A controversial finding that a meteorite from Mars might contain evidence of life has been boosted by the discovery of a magnetic crystal that researchers say could have been made only by a microbe. Gamma-Rays from an Asteroid Perched on the surface of asteroid 433 Eros, NASA's NEAR spacecraft is beaming back measurements of gamma-rays leaking from the space rock's dusty soil. Group Hopes Sunlight Will Propel Spacecraft See also: Private space group plans solar sailing voyage Forget bulky rockets and costly fuel: A U.S.-Russian consortium plans to send a craft skyward that floats, not on the wind, but on the gentle pressure of the sun's rays. Galileo spies Io's hot lava, tall mountains See also: Microbial Life Existed on Mars, Say Scientists and Io’s mountain mystery solved? , Galileo images of the Jovian Moons and A NASA probe in the Jupiter system snapped incredible pictures of the hottest volcanoes and some of the tallest mountains in the solar system as it dipped near a fiery jovian moon. UK asteroid response 'unsatisfactory' Scientists have criticised the UK Government's response to an expert report on the threat to the Earth from asteroids and comets. Exploring a Distant World of Ice and Hydrocarbons Titan is an utterly unique member of the Solar System: an icy moon only slightly bigger than the planet Mercury, but possessing an atmosphere fully four times denser than Earth's at its surface. Money could buy the next giant leap With guided tours of outer space set to become a tourist attraction, space exploration will soon be driven more by commercialism than scientific curiosity, one of the first moonwalkers says. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin made his prediction after meeting with science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka on Sunday to discuss their visions of the future of space travel. Meteorite Analysis Suggests Comets Delivered Life's Key Ingredients See also: Ingredients for Life on Earth May Have Been Delivered by Comets An object that fell to Earth more than 136 years ago has revealed new clues about the origin of meteorites in space and new information about how life may have started on early Earth. A lot is riding on Mars Odyssey George Pace hops on an airport shuttle and the driver asks what he does. Working on a Mars mission, he says, the next Mars mission. “Ohhhh, that’s got to work,” the driver tells him, remembering NASA’s embarrassing back-to-back Mars flops in 1999. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before,” Pace replies. Weeks later, Pace laughs as he recalls the conversation. He’s admiring the spacecraft that he’s been charged with overseeing, the 2001 Mars Odyssey, scheduled for launch April 7. Elephant-sized collaboration can't yet budge the Standard Model Question: How many physicists does it take to calculate one number? Answer: About 550. Scientists spy dust 'doughnut' around young star New technology has allowed scientists to peer inside a distant, doughnut-shaped dust cloud surrounding a massive young star. Mars Express forges collaboration with Japanese Mars mission International collaboration between Europe and Japan took a step forward last month when scientists building instruments for ESA's Mars Express mission travelled to Japan for a meeting with their counterparts on Nozomi, the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science's (ISAS) mission to Mars. Students uncover baffling Martian boulders In a case of beginner's luck, a group of international students, who won the chance to image Mars with a NASA spacecraft camera, have stumbled upon a surprising cluster of dark-colored boulders situated in the middle of light-colored terrain. Meteorites Point To Abundant Water On Mars Long Ago Chemical analysis of Martian meteorites supports the controversial theory of water on Mars, according to Meenakshi Wadhwa, PhD, associate curator of meteoritics at The Field Museum in Chicago. Her research was published in the February 23rd issue of Science. Space station prepares for supplies A rocket carrying supplies for the International Space Station took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday. Exploring Supersonic Engines The first ramjet-propelled plane flew 1,020 miles per hour in the '50s. Now scramjets leave that record-breaking speed in the dust. Find out how NASA hopes to boost its own space tourism plans with the tech. Twin telescopes complete mission After scanning the entire sky and capturing breathtaking and scientifically important images of galaxies, stars and other celestial objects, twin infrared telescopes in Arizona and Chile have finished their survey work. Giant balloon project deflated See also: NASA's big balloon falls back to Earth A giant balloon which scientists hope will usher in a new age of near space research has been forced back to Earth just hours after taking off from Australia. Experts explore potential paths to outer planets Scooting across Saturn’s Titan via helicopter. Circling a comet nucleus for months on end, then dropping down atop the space iceberg. Ballooning over Uranus and Neptune. Innovative ways are now being reviewed to explore distant worlds as part of NASA’s newly created Outer Planets Program Directorate here at the space agency’s headquarters. UK targets asteroid threat Britain is to take a leading role in an international effort to defend the Earth against a catastrophic collision with an asteroid or comet. Asteroid 'destroyed life 250m years ago' See also: Asteroid May Have Caused History's Biggest Extinction , Asteroids Struck Twice , The Rise and Fall of Dino World , Biggest die-off linked to deep impact and Watch is on for doomsday asteroids, comets Earth's biggest mass extinction 251 million years ago was triggered by a collision with a comet or asteroid, say US scientists. SOHO analyses a kamikaze comet A comet that fell into the Sun on 7 February was tracked by two different instruments on the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft, enabling scientists to characterize it quite precisely. This was just one of nearly 300 comets discovered by SOHO since 1996, thanks mainly to the privileged view of the sky around the Sun given by the visible-light coronagraph LASCO. On this occasion SOHO's ultraviolet coronagraph UVCS also observed the comet repeatedly. It gave valuable additional information, both about the comet and about the solar wind close to the Sun. Lucky lander clings to life on asteroid See also: Asteroid mission extended again Scientists have now been given until month’s end to collect data from the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft sitting on the surface of the asteroid Eros. Information gleaned by instruments direct from the space rock has already proven puzzling enough to cause baffled scientists to wonder if Eros is a misidentified class of asteroid. Venus creates twilight spectacle Venus reached its brightest level this year on Thursday, outshining any other star or planet by a magnitude of seven or more. Engineers working on Galileo camera mystery Engineers may be close to solving a puzzling problem with a camera on NASA's Galileo spacecraft. Blazing Venus Fiery Venus is a wonderful planet to look at, but you wouldn't want to live there! This is a good time to keep an eye on the second planet from the Sun as it approaches Earth and delivers a dazzling sky show. Japan frets over junk from Mir Talk about a worst-case scenario. A rocket engine misfires somewhere over Africa, sending almost 140 tons of Russian space junk out of a low orbit to rain down on Japan’s main island. There is no time to respond, no way to deflect the screaming shards to the ocean where they were intended to go. U.S. prepares for Mir’s fall to Earth The U.S. government is coordinating federal agencies to prepare for the fall of Russia’s Mir space station. In the event that an out-of-control Mir crashes in the United States, the Federal Emergency Management Agency is ready to respond to the calamity. Search For Distant Biospheres Sniffs First Molecules Of Life Using spectral tools for submillimeter wave and infrared observations, astronomers are looking for the building blocks of life in all the right places: where there might be oxygen and where it is wet. Trackers focus on Mir’s free fall The tumble from orbit of Russia’s Mir space station is becoming a spectator sport. And leading the charge in an attempt to capture the 15-year-old spacecraft’s demise in the skies above the South Pacific is Bob Citron, leader of the private U.S.-based Mir Re-entry Observation Expedition. Galaxies And Black Holes: You Can't Have One Without The Other Galaxies and black holes are so intimately connected that it is almost impossible to find one without the other, according to University of Michigan astronomer Douglas Richstone. NASA debunks moon landing hoax conspiracy See also: The Great Moon Hoax Did NASA land men on the moon? "Yes, we did," the space agency proclaimed Monday on the Internet, rebutting newly boosted claims from conspiracy theorists that the Apollo missions were faked. Titanic director aims for the skies James Cameron, the director who made the phenomenally successful movie Titanic, has enquired about producing a film on board the International Space Station (ISS). Awaiting Mir's Crash Down Under The Russian space station is fated for a massive collision with Earth sometime in early March. Scientists hope it'll be in the middle of the ocean between New Zealand and Chile, emphasis on the word "hope." How Did Matter Come To Dominate The Universe? The seemingly unremarkable fact that the universe is full of matter turns out to be something physicists can't quite account for. NEAR sends new data from Eros After a successful landing, the NEAR spacecraft transmits ‘good-looking spectra’ from asteroid’s surface. 'Hungry' stars reveal planet presence A statistical analysis of nearby stars suggests most probably have Earth-type planets in orbit around them. Group lobbying to send humans to Mars As chairman of the Ohio chapter of the Mars Society, Lyle Kelly helps lead a drive to persuade the U.S. government to commit to human exploration and settlement of the red planet. What's in the Oort Cloud? Both Less and More, New Study Suggests February 13, 2000: No one has ever seen the Oort cloud, that spherical envelope of comets and their residues that surrounds our Solar System. No one has ever measured its size and density or counted the objects in it. Nor is anyone likely to do so in the foreseeable future: the Oort cloud is too distant, and the objects in it too small and too dim to be detected by our instruments. The 'Odyssey' continues The relevance of the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' resounds in 2001. Physicists Find Extra Dimensions Must Be Smaller Than 0.2 Millimeter University of Washington scientists using gravity measurements to hunt for evidence of dimensions in addition to those already known have found that those dimensions would have to occupy a space smaller than 0.2 millimeter. Winds delay shuttle landing See also: Long Days in Space The crew of space shuttle Atlantis delay their return to Earth after their key mission to the international space station. Cluster's new view of near-Earth space Studies of near-Earth space will never be the same again, following the successful commissioning of the European Space Agency's Cluster mission. Sun flips magnetic field See also: The Sun Does a Flip The poles of the sun's powerful magnetic field have reversed, signaling a time of peak solar activity that could spell trouble for planet Earth. Asteroid mission extended See also: Asteroid Probe Gets Longer Lease and It's Not Over Yet! Nasa is still receiving signals from the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid and has extended the mission by 10 days to gather important scientific information. Solar flares postpone Mir descent Unexpected weather conditions on the Sun mean Russia's Mir space station will not be destroyed until some time between 13 and 18 March, perhaps even later, Russian officials say. Unique science results from Cluster's Lunar eclipse In the summer of 1999, millions of people across Europe peered upwards at the sky in an effort to see one of Nature's wonders - a total eclipse of the Sun. On 25 January, European engineers and scientists witnessed an eclipse of a different kind - the passage of four Cluster spacecraft through the outer part of the Moon's shadow. A galaxy cluster on the X-ray edge The most distant X-ray cluster of galaxies yet has been found by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Distant Nebulae Pumping Out Brown Dwarfs By The Hundreds Subaru Telescope has successfully taken a sharp and deep infrared image of the star-forming region, S106, creating a stunning image from across. In addition, many objects with masses less than that of an ordinary star have been discovered in this region. Square Pegs In Search Of ExoWorlds You can't put a square peg in a round hole. But putting a square aperture on a round telescope might be the best way to see the light of distant, Earth-like planets. At least, that's what computer simulations of a new extraterrestrial telescope predict. Classic Lunar Atlas From 1960s Orbital Survey Now Online The Lunar Orbiter program was one of the most successful mission series ever flown. Designed to obtain high-resolution pictures to certify the safety of Apollo landing sites, the first three missions were so successful that the last two, Orbiters 4 and 5, were "released" for scientific mapping of the Moon. Nasa probe makes history See also: Spacecraft makes improbable landing on asteroid and Probe touches down on asteroid An unmanned Nasa spacecraft has landed on an asteroid called Eros, nearly 200 million miles from Earth. Experiment May Advance Physics > See also: Study could upset laws of physics Physicists may have poked a hole in their current theory of how the universe operates. A Valentine From Eros? See also: Nasa ready for asteroid touchdown and Spacecraft descends toward asteroid for landing Since Valentine's Day of last year, a spacecraft has been orbiting Eros, a 21-mile long asteroid. Today scientists will attempt to land the spacecraft on the asteroid. It's the first time such an attempt has been made on an object so far away. Astronauts complete delicate mission See also: Astronauts enter Destiny for first time Astronauts have finished adding a multi-million dollar scientific laboratory to the International Space Station. Russians protest over demise of Mir A recent poll shows that over 40 per cent of Russians are in favour of keeping Mir. Global Warming on Mars Artificial greenhouse gases that are bad news on Earth could provide the means to make Mars a more comfortable place for humans to live. Mir destruction date slips The destruction date for the Mir space station is still not set. Mir Sample Reveals Mysterious Uranium Contamination The Mir space station is determined to go out with a bang. Just a month before it is due to crash into the Pacific Ocean, it has thrown up one last puzzle. How did tiny radioactive specks of decay products of uranium end up on one of its instrument covers? The Search for Another Earth NASA is currently mulling over a proposal that could help answer a question that has divided astronomers since we began looking skyward: Are we alone? 'Space tourist' begins final training A US businessman, who hopes to become the world's first space tourist, began final training at Russia's Star City on Saturday. Shuttle astronauts in Florida for Wednesday launch The five astronauts who are to deliver a $1.4 billion science lab to the International Space Station arrived in Florida Sunday for final preparations before Wednesday's scheduled launch. Pluto's mysterious streak mapped See also: New Pluto map colors a dark world A new map of Pluto, the most distant planet in the Solar System, shows a mysterious dark streak just south of its equator. Huygens relay link mystery fully unravelled A special calibration test is being conducted with the Huygens receivers on board Cassini. This test is the first key milestone of the work performed by the Huygens Recovery Task Force which has been jointly set up by ESA’s Science Director and NASA’s Science Associate Administrator. The test results will provide a solid engineering basis for the design of new mission scenarios which can recover the Huygens relay link performance. Cost overruns could put space station in trouble with Bush Cost overruns have been the curse of the International Space Station since its inception. SETI sets new search for life action plan The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has always been a long shot. A new action plan is being pursued that could hasten the day when Earth might be on the receiving end of signals from civilizations circling distant stars. Hands-free space flights in future Dave Bowman’s biggest problem was that once he got locked outside the spaceship, HAL was doing the driving. The technology of '2001: A Space Odyssey' - at least back in 1968 - didn’t allow a spacewalking astronaut to do much more than beg for control of his craft’s computer. Remote Pioneer 10 Remains Silent Though the mission team would like to think the glass is half full, hope is fading that they ever will communicate again with Pioneer 10, the most remote object ever made by humans. Astro-Entomology? Ant-like Space Structure Previews Death of Our Sun See also: Experts ponder beauty of nebulae , Hubble holds up magnifying glass to 'ant-nebula' and Ants in space? - Tantalising detail in ant-shaped nebula illuminates last moments of Sun-like stars From ground-based telescopes, this cosmic object -- the glowing remains of a dying, Sun-like star -- resembles the head and thorax of a garden-variety ant. But this dramatic Hubble telescope image of the so-called "ant nebula" (Menzel 3, or Mz3) shows even more detail, revealing the "ant's" body as a pair of fiery lobes protruding from the dying star. NASA yields to Alpha name The crew of space station Alpha still had to remind people what to call their home Wednesday three months after moving in. Build a 'Mars City'! Wubbo Ockels invites junior school children to take part in the ESA 'Mars City' competition. Probe ready for asteroid landing See also: Ready for First-Ever Controlled Descent to an Asteroid , NEAR closing in on descent to surface of Eros and NEAR set for tricky asteroid landing Plans to soft-land the Near-Shoemaker probe on the asteroid Eros have been detailed by the American space agency Nasa. Turf war over rover landing sites Where to plunk down twin Mars rovers on the Red Planet in early 2004 has sparked spirited debate among scientists and engineers. Battle lines are being drawn between these two camps, each weighing scientific payoff against technical worries in picking ultra-safe landing areas over risky touchdown spots. Mars Global Surveyor completes mapping mission See also: New Era Begins As Mars Global Surveyor Completes Prime Mission NASA's Mars Global Surveyor is close to finishing its main mission, after having gathered tens of thousands of images of the red planet. The Solar Wind at Mars The solar wind has slowly eroded the Martian atmosphere for billions of years -- transforming the planet into a barren desert. Missing In Action: Oort Cloud Blown Away See also: Comets culled in carnage Many comets once thought to have been ejected into the Oort Cloud during the early formation of the solar system are now believed to have been pulverized in violent collisions among themselves. Japan Plans To Launch Solar Power Station In Space By 2040 Undaunted by its less than glorious track record in space, Japan's ministry of economy, trade and industry (METI) has ambitious plans to launch a giant solar power station by 2040. View the Beagle 2 landing site The landing site for the ESA's Beagle 2 Mars Lander has been chosen. X-ray view into a starburst Luminous starburst galaxies are where a lot of young stars are currently forming. They come in two different varieties: starbursts where the star creation is spread evenly throughout the galaxy and those where it is concentrated at its nucleus. Sometimes activity at the centre is so intense that fantastic 'bubbles' are created giving rise to streams of hot gas, or 'superwinds'. XMM-Newton has recently gained new insights into one such starburst galaxy, NGC 253. Answers hidden in a space bubble Clouds of gas and dust in space, called nebulae, come in many shapes and sizes. Rings, loops, hourglass shapes and countless other contortions are sources of fascinating cosmic beauty when captured by ground-based and orbiting telescopes. Tito Signs On The Dotted Line For The Trip Of A Lifetime Head of the Russian Aerospace Agency Yuri Koptev has signed a contract for U.S. businessman Dennis Tito's flight up to the International Space Station (ISS) as a tourist on board the Russian 'Soyuz-TM' spacecraft, the Agency's press service has told Interfax. The Kuiper Belt and Olbers's Paradox It may be hard to imagine that the dark night sky is a profound astronomical observation. Yet the darkness of the night sky, also known as Olbers Paradox, is one of astronomy's great puzzles. Now, two astronomers have shown that the dark night sky also tells us about the structure and formation of our solar system and the distribution of Kuiper belt objects. The Discovery of Cygnus A Cygnus A was an early target of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It has been the focus of attention and controversy among astronomers since it was discovered more than fifty years ago.

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