Scientists studying powerful gamma-ray bursts in deep space accidentally discovered a closer source of gamma energy -- thunderclouds on Earth.
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Hubble Measures the Expanding Universe See also: Lifting the Veil on Hubble's Constant
, A younger, lighter, stranger cosmos
Hubble Completes Eight-Year Effort to Measure Expanding Universe
, Universe is 12 billion years old and Astronomers calculate age of the universe
The Hubble Space Telescope Key Project team today announced that it has completed efforts to measure precise distances to far-flung galaxies, an essential ingredient needed to determine the age, size and fate of the universe.
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New Star in Southern Skies
A bright new star has exploded into visibility in the southern skies. It is so bright it can be seen with the unaided eye.
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Russian space official charged with battery See also: Russian space official charged in Florida assault
A top Russian space official found semiconscious on a beach was arrested after attacking two emergency medical workers.
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Moon spacecraft set for crash-landing
Scientists want to crash-land the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon's south-pole region. They believe this may help them determine how much water is on the Moon.
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Green light to Red Planet
The European Space Agency (Esa) has given the final go-ahead to the Mars Express mission. The probe, due for launch in 2003, will be the continent's first mission to the Red Planet.
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Scientists plot search for Earth-like planets
Somewhere, in a star system perhaps not so far away, lies a "pale blue dot" which could be a planet much like Earth. Astronomers, astrobiologists and chemists plotting the search for that planet met this week at a NASA research center in California, coordinating research aimed at scouring the skies for alien worlds which could support life.
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Discovery mission pressing ahead despite strained U.S.-Russian relations; other uncertainties
Shuttle Discovery is scheduled to take off Thursday for NASA's International Space Station on a mission that comes during troubling times.
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OK from Yeltsin to Prolong Mir
See also: Yeltsin gives go-ahead to prolong Mir's life
President Boris Yeltsin gave the go-ahead on May 21 for Russia to keep the Mir space station in orbit, provided it was funded privately.
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The Sagan Criteria for Life Revisited
Galileo's 1990 close encounter with Earth framed some difficult questions for astrobiologists.. |
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Discussion about the SETI@home project
Details a mailing list for discussion between those of you taking part in the SETI@Home project. |
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First Scientific Discovery Made With Hobby-Eberly Telescope
The Hobby-Eberly Telescope has discovered a quasar so far away that the light we see from it today began traveling toward Earth when the universe was only one-eighth of its current age.
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Astrobiology's Most Wanted
A failure to recant resulted in the strange case of Giordano Bruno. |
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SETI software reaches new heights
SETI@home has mushroomed into the world’s largest experiment in distributed computing, just a week after its formal launch. More than a quarter-million people have downloaded the software, which sifts through radio data for messages from alien civilizations. More than 600 years of computer time have been racked up in a week, with a year’s worth contributed by a Michigan Tech network.
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The Moon Eclipses Regulus
Astronomers hope that stargazers across North America will video tape this rare naked-eye event on May 21 to gain a unique perspective on lunar terrain.
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NASA goes to the movies… for a new spacesuit
It's a quirky instance of life imitating art imitating life. A Hollywood costume guru – well-known for his realistic-looking spacesuits – was chosen by NASA to design and build the latest mockup of a new and improved spacesuit.
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Britain's Branson Says Plans Hotel in Space
British entrepreneur Richard Branson is planning a hotel in space and has registered a company called "Virgin Galactic Airways" to ferry guests into orbit.
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A little more money and a lot more challenge for ESA's Science Programme
ESA's Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) confirmed the Mars Express missiob, scheduled for launch in 2003. "Following the conditional approval of Mars Express in November 1998, and given the Executive's assessment that the conditions are fulfilled up to the end of 2001, the SPC confirms that Mars Express can proceed", the text of a Resolution states.
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Does British Businessman Have Right Stuff for Mir?
A British businessman who has pledged to help raise $100 million to finance the Mir space station is expected to start training in the next few days to go into space in August, space officials said on Thursday. The Russian government has told the Energiya rocket corporation which owns the 13-year-old Mir that it will be unable to fund the station after this summer and that only private funding will keep Mir in orbit.
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AI Takes Over Spacecraft
See also: Deep Space 1 continues despite 'intelligent' mistake
An artificial intelligence took control of a small ion-powered spacecraft 75 million miles from Earth this week.
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Tempers Flare in Space
When space travelers leave on voyages to distant planets, their baggage will include the same anger, rivalries and jealousies that mark relationships on Earth.
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Another Moon for Uranus
See also: New moon discovered around Uranus
Time to break out the Shakespeare. Astronomers have spotted another moon around Uranus.
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Hubble Views Colossal Polar Cyclone on Mars
See also: Stormy Weather on Mars
, Big Winds Blow on Mars
and Giant storm on Mars
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an enormous cyclonic storm system raging in the northern polar regions of the planet Mars. Nearly four times the size of the state of Texas, the storm is composed of water ice clouds like storm systems on Earth, rather than dust typically found in Martian storms.
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Close shave with asteroid
See also: Earth’s close shave with an asteroid
A large asteroid could miss the Earth by only 38,000 kilometres in 2027, according to new astronomical observations.
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Hunting For Space Life
Nobel Prize winner Baruch S. Blumberg has been named to head the U.S. government’s search for life in space.
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Star Wars technology, coming soon to a planet near you
Science fiction is the infinite realm of what might be, sometimes just a few minutes into the future. The new Star Wars movie flashes dozens of futuristic concepts past the viewer's eyes - but how likely are these concepts? Some might be closer than you think.
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Building Solar Cells For Mars
How well can different types of solar cells "stand up" to conditions on a cold and dusty Mars? Two NASA Glenn Research Center experiments, which will help answer that question, have been approved for the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander mission and will be built as flight hardware.
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Scientists catch another gamma-ray burster in visible light
Eyes in the Southern Hemisphere are turning to capture the fading glory of a gamma-ray burst that appeared on May 10. The Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) aboard the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory observed the powerful burst.
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NASA focuses on astrobiology
NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin will discuss the space agency’s new direction in astrobiology, the study of life in the Universe, during a news briefing at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday. Watch the briefing via MSNBC on the Internet.
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Pushing the Limits of Computer Technology
Optical computers will be much faster than today's electronic computers. NASA Scientists at Marshall Space Flight Center are conducting space research to build components needed for the next step: hybrid electro-optic computers.
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Computer program assumes Deep Space 1 spacecraft command
See also: Computer program assumes spacecraft command
It's one small step in the history of robotic space flight; but it may turn out to be one giant leap for computer-kind: Artificial intelligence software is in primary command of a spacecraft for the first time.
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PBS' 'Voyage to the Milky Way': Get on board
A new series, ''Voyage to the Milky Way'' (airing Wednesday at 8 p.m. EDT on the U.S. PBS network), aims to stir the imagination about space travel. ''At the turn of the millennium, space is a wide-open field,'' the film declares, ''and it beckons us with a promise of adventure ... profit ... escape.''
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British businessman hoping for Mir trip visits Russia
A British businessman who has offered to pay for a trip on Russia's aging, cash-strapped Mir space station met with space officials May 17 in Moscow to discuss the flight, a news report said.
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SOHO ready for next cosmic events
Three months after a challenging, long-distance space rescue, the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is preparing for two important cosmic events: the 11 August solar eclipse in Europe and Asia - the last of this millennium - and an increase in solar activity on the Sun itself, called a solar maximum - the first of the next millennium.
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Southern Fireworks above ESO Telescopes
This ESO press release includes important new results about
the recent Gamma-Ray Burst GRB 990510 that were obtained with various ESO telescopes, notably the VLT. |
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‘Star Wars’ science strikes back
OK, so maybe lightsabers couldn’t work the way they seem to work in “The Phantom Menace” ... maybe Luke Skywalker’s landspeeder relies on a technology that’s on the very edge of believability ... and certainly X-wing fighters wouldn’t make zooming noises in space. But scientists say there’s still a lot to be learned from the “Star Wars” sagas, even if the science isn’t quite right.
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Citibank, Others Cleared Of Plot To Kill 'Martian'
A Canadian judge dismissed a claim Monday that Defense Minister Art Eggleton, Citibank and several drug-store chains were part of a conspiracy to kill a complainant because he is a Martian.
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Galileo Gets An Upgrade
NASA's Galileo spacecraft team members are all smiles after Galileo proved to be a star pupil by successfully demonstrating specially designed, newly installed software ahead of May 13th's flyby of Jupiter's pockmarked moon.
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Shuttle launch delayed until at least May 27th
Julie Payette may be chomping at the bit to be finally floating in the weightlessness of space, but she'll have to wait another week.
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SETI software causes Internet rush
Software that searches for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence hit the big time May 14th, jamming computer servers until the reinforcements were called in. The reason for the rush was the release of Windows and Mac versions of SETI@home.
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SETI software hits the big time
See also: If ET Calls, Will You Be Listening?
Software that searches for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence is ready for prime time, with Windows and Mac versions now available to the public. SETI@home’s big launch comes more than a month after the first Unix versions were made available. About 12,000 people have been testing the software, and nearly 400,000 have signed up as volunteers.
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Looking for E.T.
At the University of California at Berkeley, astrophysicist Dan Werthimer listens for anything, any noise from space, that could be the calling card of a distant civilization.
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Real Alien Life Forms Unlikely to Resemble E.T.
They may not look like E.T. but the possibility that life forms exist beyond our planet is very real, scientists said May 14th.
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Astronomers Seek Home Video of Star's Eclipse
Astronomers want as many home videos as they can get of the moon's eclipse of the bright star Regulus, hoping to capture a pointillist picture of lunar craters and mountains. No telescopes are required, because this eclipse -- known to astronomers as an occultation -- will be visible to the naked eye in most of the United States, Canada and Mexico late on May 21 and early on May 22.
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New UK telescope will survey southern skies
The quest for answers to outstanding mysteries in our universe received a boost this week when British astronomers learned that their proposal for a special new telescope to survey southern skies has been approved. VISTA - the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy - is different from most ordinary large telescopes, which can only look at one very small patch of sky at a time. It will survey large areas of sky for very faint stars and galaxies. In a single exposure of only 10 minutes, it will be able capture the images of 100,000 objects.
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Advanced Space Transportation Media Update -- Solar Electric Propulsion Set for Flight Demonstration
A solar electric propulsion system that could lead to cheaper in-space transportation is planned as the first flight experiment demonstration of NASA’s Future-X Program.
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Panel votes to scrap Gore's pet satellite
Al Gore's dream-inspired spacecraft to monitor the Earth isn't in orbit yet, and already it's falling victim to flying political debris in Congress.
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Help for Hubble: Anxiety High as NASA Prepares for Rush Repair Job
Anxiety is high as NASA prepares for a rush repair job on its beloved Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble's pointing system could die any day, halting all astronomical observations. So NASA is sending astronauts to the rescue in October, eight months earlier than they were supposed to go.
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Russia woos Western investors to keep Mir afloat
Russia's Energiya space corporation is looking for serious international investors to keep the Mir space station aloft. |
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Hubble's Top Ten Gravitational Lenses
See also: Through the looking glass
The NASA Hubble Space Telescope serendipitous survey of the sky has uncovered exotic patterns, rings, arcs and crosses that are all optical mirages produced by a gravitational lens, nature's equivalent of having giant magnifying glass in space.
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China to test 'space shuttle' in October
The Chinese space programme will try to launch its first spacecraft designed to carry astronauts on 1 October.
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Budget deal clears way for Mars Express
European governments agreed a five-year space budget late on May 12 that should now clear the way for the continent's first expedition to Mars.
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New mirror for Ireland's 'Leviathan' telescope
A century ago, it was the world's largest telescope. Then it fell into decay. Soon it will see the stars again.
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Celestial Explosions May Signal Incoming Alien Calls
Scientists theorize that alien signals are most likely to come on the tail of a brilliant celestial explosion.
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Earth to Aliens: Physicists Plan to Send Second Message Into Space
If astronomers are busy looking for signals from outer space, why aren't we trying to send our own signals? We are. In fact, last January, a team of Canadian scientists announced they plan to send a message into space from a 150-kilowatt transmitter in the Ukraine.
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Star Wars by Moonlight
Next week thousands of science and science fiction fans may find themselves standing in long lines, waiting to buy tickets for the newest episode of Star Wars. If you're one of them, don't forget to look up. Venus and the Moon are putting on a sky show that may help pass the time.
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Hail damage to external tank could delay Discovery's launch
Hail damage to a fuel tank could delay space shuttle Discovery's upcoming launch to the new International Space Station.
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Celestial Darwinism Produces Ever Larger Bodies
The results of galactic pileups are absorbed stars, warped orbits, and feasting black holes
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Jupiter's supersonic winds
See also: Jupiter's supersonic winds (RAS)
Violent winds race around the poles of Jupiter at thousands of kilometres per hour. Known as "auroral electrojets", they may reach supersonic speeds and explain why temperatures at the top of the Jovian atmosphere are much higher than expected.
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Whole Sun Month At Solar Minimum: Results Of A Worldwide Study
Scientists have completed a comprehensive study of the Sun during a month of its most recent quiet period, using instruments not previously available. They have compiled data and gained insights that will be useful as the Sun reaches its period of maximum sunspot activity in the year 2000.
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MSU Research Extinguishes Movie Myths of Flames in Space
Dazzled by sparks flying in space during "Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace''? Don't buy it. In space, no one can see you burn. At least, not traditionally burn - flames spiking, sparks flaring -- says Indrek Wichman. The Michigan State University mechanical engineering professor is working with a NASA grant to understand how flames behave in zero gravity.
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X-33 liquid oxygen tank successfully completes stress tests
Tests conducted by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center show the experimental X-33 technology demonstrator’s liquid oxygen tank is ready for sub-orbital trips at more than 13 times the speed of sound.
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From Near Earth Asteroids to water on Mars - astronomers review latest ISO results
Near-Earth Asteroids - asteroids whose orbits bring them close to Earth - very likely originate from collisions between larger asteroids that orbit the Sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter. This result, obtained by ESA's infrared space telescope, ISO, was presented May 10 at a workshop on ISO results on the Solar System. Other findings related to the atmosphere of Mars and the giant planets - Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus - were also presented.
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Apollo veteran calls for new vision
Space hero Buzz Aldrin says people have lost the vision and excitement that inspired the Moon landings. |
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Star-studded photo album delivered to Internet
See also: A spectacular survey of the Milky Way and beyond
A colossal assortment of star-studded, galaxy-filled pictures and information - enough to fill the hard disks on hundreds of home computers - is contained in the first major data release from a telescope sky survey sponsored by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
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NASA Seeks Innovative Next Generation Space Telescope Ideas
NASA has challenged industry to help design a revolutionary space telescope able to peer into the furthest reaches of space, back in time to the "dark ages," an unknown period in the early universe when stars and galaxies were first beginning to form.
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ISS to Go Into Orbit Without Enough Protective Shields
NASA is to waive its safety requirements for the International Space Station (ISS) in a bid to get it in orbit earlier.
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Shaping the future of Europe in Space: which programmes, which needs?
On 11 and 12 May, ESA's governing body, the Council, will meet at its ministerial level in Brussels. The main objective of this meeting is to shape the future of the space sector in Europe by setting a space policy that will allow the Old Continent to continue playing a major role in space activities.
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Hubble nets a disaster
It is what Net users wanted and Hubble duly obliged. Eight thousand Internet voters asked for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to take a close-up picture of the extraordinary "polar-ring" galaxy NGC 4650A.
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Black is the new pink
See also: Australian Team Finds Pink Black Holes
Some black holes appear bright pink, Australian astronomers have discovered. They are still struggling to explain why but they speculate that the light emanates from gas that is being ripped apart as it disappears into the black hole.
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Surveyor Resumes Mars Maps
Engineers have been unable to fix a problem that limits motion of Mars Global Surveyor's main antenna but the spacecraft has resumed mapping the planet.
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Kids can take a virtual spin on Mars
See also: Space Day 1999
Hey, kids: Want to drive a rover on Mars? NASA plans to give children as young as 11 a turn at the remote controls on Earth during a mission due for launch in 2001. Selected students would issue the commands to move a rover just like the one that wowed the world during the Mars Pathfinder mission.
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NASA to rename center in John Glenn's honor
On May 7, NASA will pay tribute to John Glenn, a symbol of the Agency's past, present and future, by renaming the Agency's Ohio center the John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field.
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Matter or antimatter, that is the question
A new experiment is designed to answer the most fundamental question about our Universe - why it is made of matter and not antimatter.
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Ring Around a Galaxy
Space Telescope Science Institute astronomers are giving the public chances to decide where to aim NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Guided by 8,000 Internet voters, Hubble has already been used to take a close-up, multi-color picture of the most popular object from a list of candidates, the extraordinary "polar-ring" galaxy NGC 4650A.
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At last, space shuttle may live up to promises
Is the space shuttle past its prime? Maybe not. A series of improvements to NASA's venerable space vehicle could mean the best is yet to come.
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Triana Connects Earth To The Net
Gore-Cam or Earth-Cam,... call it what you want, but the Net will soon have a permanent camera looking at Earth. In an extended opinion piece, Francisco Valero, director of atmospheric research at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography outlines the objectives of Triana.
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Turn left at Callisto
See also: Old spacecraft can learn new tricks
This morning (May 5) at 6:56 am Pacific Daylight Time NASA's Galileo spacecraft zoomed past Jupiter's moon Callisto at a distance of only 1315 km, 94 times closer than Voyager's closest approach in 1979. Early reports indicate that the encounter was a success and that Galileo is operating normally.
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Scientists locate possible sites for Moon colonies
See also: Scientists pinpoint potential sites for moon colonies
and Three moonbase sites suggested
On Earth, the south pole may well be the worst place to live, but that region of the Moon could be the best choice for future bases.
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Asteroid Belt Close to Earth
See also: Rocky road around Earth
British astronomers have calculated the position of a possible near-Earth asteroid belt which could increase the possibility of a disastrous collision.
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The Search for Planets: Eureka a Planet! — So What?
Why do we search for new planets? Sigmund Freud, Giordano Bruno and the Pope have opinions
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'Hole' in space spotted
Astronomers have spotted a "hole" in space, caused by a huge cloud of dust and gas.
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Deep Space 1 Completes Ion Burn
Deep Space 1 has completed six weeks of ion thrusting boosting its speed by 300 meters per second - 13 times faster than conventional chemical thrusters would have achieved with the same fuel weight
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Tension on Ground, Not Space See also: Space station mission to include repairs
On earth, Russia and the United States are at odds over NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia. But out in space, the quarrel doesn't seem to make much difference.
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Sunk space capsule to be salvaged
See also: Mercury capsule find evokes sad memories for widow
and Redeeming a spaceship from the sea
The salvage crew which found a 38-year-old US spacecraft on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean have vowed to retrieve it within a month.
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Meteors Down Under
On May 6th debris from Halley's comet will strike Earth's atmosphere and put on a sky show for southern observers. The eta Aquarid meteor display is the first of two upcoming annual showers caused by the famous comet.
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Craft to carry DNA into deep space from Kourou
A starship destined for deep space soon will be boarding at a South American spaceport, and anyone with $60 can hitch a ride. Genetically speaking, that is.
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Caltech Proposes Safer Mars Mission
Students at CalTech have proposed a manned Mars mission that would be substantially safer and cheaper than other proposals.
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Plate Tectonics May Have Once Operated On Mars, As Reported In Science
Mars may once have maintained a plate tectonics system, according to a team of U.S. and French scientists who have analyzed new magnetic information about the planet's crust. The team reports its findings, which may be the first direct evidence that plate tectonics are not unique to Earth, in two papers in the 30 April issue of Science.
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Success story - 30 discoveries from ESA's science missions in space
At the close of a century, and after 35 years of our scientific missions, the Science Programme Directorate of the European Space Agency decided to show how well the science programme has used the resources made available by the Member States, on behalf of the space scientific community. Looking back, we can say with pride that these resources allowed us to produce true discovery machines.
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Mercury Capsule Found
See also: After 38 years, Grissom's Mercury space capsule found
and Diving crew finds U.S. space capsule
Lost at sea for 38 years, astronaut Gus Grissom’s Mercury capsule was found over the weekend by an underwater salvage team that had been searching for the spacecraft 300 miles offshore.
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Up close and Martian
The planet Mars has reached its closest point to the Earth for 10 years, giving observers all over the world an unusually clear view.
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Texas company makes splash with plans for Caribbean spaceport
It's an audacious plan: Take over a desolate, wave-battered Caribbean island, launch commercial satellites and make a lot of money.
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