News Headlines for July 1998

First VLT Excursion into Deep Space During the continuing "Commissioning Phase" of the first VLT 8.2-m telescope (UT1), it has been possible to carry out some astronomical observations. Mars meteorite in UK hands UK scientists are hoping to make the next breakthrough in the search for evidence of life on Mars. European space scientists face crisis Space science in Europe is reaching a crisis, according to Roger Bonnet, director of the European Space Agencies science programme. Star nursery spotted in Milky Way Astronomers have observed about 100 massive stars in the throes of birth near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Studies point to space as origin of life's seeds Three studies published July 30 cast more light on how life originated on Earth, painting a picture in which space dust provided the seeds, and a warm, volcanic environment supplied the incubator. Creation could be left-handed The answer to one of the deepest mysteries of life on Earth may be found in deep space. The Geography of Stargazing See also: Stargazers: Go south for stars, north for meteors If you want to see the stars, the Southern Hemisphere is the place to be. But if you want to spot meteors, astronomers say the best spots lie generally well north of the equator. SUV Tracks On Mars? The `Devil' Is In The Details Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs) on Mars? Imagine the MOC imaging team's surprise on the morning of April 27, 1998, as the latest images came in from the "Red Planet." Solar satellite needs more power See also: The Detection Of SOHO Raises Hopes For Its Recovery Engineers have made radar contact with a crippled satellite sent up to observe the sun, but are unable to establish a radio link because the satellite apparently has no electrical power. Somewhere out there, vital signs await NASA The search for the origins of life in the universe is just starting to pick up speed. Between now and 2006, NASA will send out probes to sample comet, asteroid and star dust, Martian soil, and a gust of solar wind particles. Japanese Spacecraft Takes Its First Image On July 18, two weeks after its picture-perfect launch, the Japanese Nozomi spacecraft captured its first image -- a view of Earth and its Moon. Unraveling the Big Bang If there’s an award for armchair travelers, Julian Borrill ought to win it easily. Borrill used a supercomputer to travel back in time to 100 billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang. Galileo Engineers Successfully Restart Spacecraft's Stalled Systems See also: Galileo resumes beaming science data to Earth The Galileo Europa Mission is back on track. Some debris last week caused a short in one of the spacecraft's signal lines and forced the orbiter to stop transmitting data to Earth. Since then, engineers have successfully restarted both of the Galileo's command and data subsystems. Catch a falling star A team of scientists has begun looking for a giant meteorite that landed in Greenland last December. You can follow their progress as they update their diary from the impact zone. Scientists Begin To Tease Out A Hidden Star's Secrets Peering deep inside obscuring cocoons of stardust, astronomers are beginning to witness the birthing secrets of an unusual star. Bids for meteorite fall short of owners' expectations Although it's far below what they were hoping for, seven Texas boys are $23 thousand dollars richer after auctioning off their meteorite. Workshop Explores Plans for Studying Extraterrestrial Life Scientists from around the world met this week at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California in a first step in planning the agency's emerging astrobiology program Russian plan to light northern cities from space foiled by money shortage An ambitious plan to put a huge mirror in space to illuminate Russia's sun-starved northern cities has been thwarted by the lack of funds, space officials said July 24. More light shed by Hubble See also: Nearby Massive Star Cluster Yields Insights Into Early Universe The Hubble Space Telescope has taken a remarkable image of young, hot stars nestled in an embryonic cloud of glowing gases. John Glenn easily performing demanding space training He's 77, but the blue eyes are keen, the hands are steady and the heart strong. John Glenn, 36 years after he became America's first man in orbit, is almost ready to romp with youngsters in outer space. First American in space dies See also: Astronaut Alan Shepard Dies, First American in space dies, Space pioneer, Alan Shepard dead at 74 and Astronaut Alan Shepard dies at 74 Astronaut Alan Shepard, the first American to fly in space and the fifth human to walk on the moon, has died at age 74. Shepard detailed 'Real Stuff' in FLORIDA TODAY interview Four years ago, Alan Shepard returned to Cocoa Beach to promote his then new book, Moon Shot, and to honor the shuttle crew members who repaired the Hubble telescope. The space pioneer also took time to do a 45-minute interview with FLORIDA TODAY. Construction Begins On First Private Manned Space Craft Construction has begun on Rotary Rocket Company's Roton, the world's first piloted fully reusable space vehicle. Astronomers Discover Neutron Star Spinning at Mind-Boggling Speeds Newly Discovered Star SAX J1808.4-3658 Spins Rapidly as It Accumulates Material from Its Companion Star. Minisub could land inside Jupiter's moon Some of the same technology used in oceans on Earth could wind up someday on the other side of the solar system. Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, appears to have an ocean beneath its icy crust. That ocean might contain plankton or other life that could be found only with a robotic submarine of the sort now off New Jersey's coast. Abolishing the northern night See also: Space mirrors may light up Arctic Sky Some Russian scientists are planning to put what is being called a new moon - actually an orbiting mirror - into the sky later this year to send back light at night. Mr. Sandman sends weightless, spacey dreams U.S. astronauts who returned from extended stays in the Russian space station Mir found that they had bizarre dreams in space. Galileo Europa Mission Status The Galileo spacecraft experienced an anomaly during its latest flyby of Jupiter's moon Europa. Neither the spacecraft nor its instruments are in immediate danger. Reseacher presents case for liquid water on Mars Dr. Gilbert V. Levin, Mars Viking Experimenter, reported on his study that water exists on the Red Planet's surface in sufficient amounts to sustain microbial life. Read his report "Liquid water and life on Mars" in the Articles section. Digging in and taking cover on Mars Lunar and Martian soil could provide radiation shielding for crews on future space missions. Scientists make plans for seeking life beyond Earth Scientific discussion of extraterrestrial life has moved beyond the question of whether it exists to where and how we should look for it. Taking Wing Over Mars See also: It’s a robot, it’s a plane...over Mars? On Dec. 17, 2003, some scientists hope to realize a dream as wild and kooky as the first flight by Orville and Wilbur Wright: an airplane aloft over Mars. Still No-Go With SOHO See also: Solar satellite lost because of mistakes It’s been three weeks since the SOHO sun-watching satellite suddenly went quiet. Some still hope to reestablish contact with the wayward spacecraft. Next Mir crew to scale back due to money crunch The next crew of the Mir space station, whose mission was threatened with cancellation because of a funding crunch, said July 17 they would have to cut their scientific program. Skeptics put Glenn, NASA under the microscope Not everyone is enchanted with NASA's plan to send a 77 year- old astronaut-turned-politician into space this fall. Search for giant meteorite starts next week Following confirmation of the impact zone of a giant meteorite that fell in Greenland on December 9 of last year, a seven-member expedition is scheduled for arrival on the glaciers of southwest Greenland on July 22. The Mercury 7: Heroes, rivals, brothers The first seven U.S. astronauts were hailed as heroes two years before any of them had ventured beyond Earth's comforting blue atmosphere. Throwing light on the sun's death A pioneering sky survey is shedding more light on how stars like our sun will die. Deep Space Traveler When a small, refrigerator-size probe named Deep Space 1 launches in October for a two-year mission, its travel itinerary - an ultra-daring swoop to within 3 to 6 miles of an asteroid or two, with possibly a comet pass thrown in for good measure - will be almost beside the point. Instead, the $141.1 million DS1 has a far more ambitious goal: Testing a dozen untried technologies as the first of NASA's New Millennium missions. The new faces of Ganymede Exciting new close-ups of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, taken by the Galileo spacecraft, were released July 15 by NASA. The unmanned craft captured the high-resolution images of Jupiter’s largest moon, which at 5,260 km across is larger than Mercury and three-quarters the size of Mars, during a series of fly-bys in June 1996 and June 1997. The discovery of a new population of distany star forming galaxies obscured by dust See also: Star Formation Astronomers have uncovered a hidden population of distant stars and galaxies that were formed much earlier than scientists had previously thought. Closest-ever glimpses of Ganymede See also: Jupiter's moon Ganymede has crater chain, hints of past ocean New images show Jupiter's giant moon Ganymede has geologic hints of an early subsurface ocean and a chain of 13 craters that could have come from a broken-up comet. Completing a Global Map of Ganymede New images of Ganymede are now available online. Mars Society Special Bulletin As a result of the $20 million added to the Mars 2001 mission by the Senate Appropriations Committee following mobilizations by the Mars Society and the Planetary Society, NASA is now considering restoring a rover to the mission. Termination of Mir-Shuttle Programme Celebrated in Houston The termination of the Mir- Shuttle space programme, considered to be the first phase in the creation of an International space station, was celebrated at the Lyndon Johnson Space Research Center in Houston. NASA to coordinate detection, tracking of asteroids and comets See also: NASA takes aim at asteroids, comets NASA's new Near-Earth Object Program Office will follow at least 90 percent of the 2,000 estimated Earth-approaching asteroids and comets that are at least two-thirds of a mile wide, the space agency announced July 14. Amateur astronomers flock to Georgia telescope Atlanta called on amateur astronomers to take a look through a powerful telescope -- and they came in droves, from all ages, to take a peek into the skies and beyond. Ambitious Sky Survey Gets under Way It took five scientists to unfurl the 30-foot-long segment of the first high-resolution picture taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Cosmic Rays Could Destroy--And Create--Life Jets of cosmic rays from colliding stars can produce lethal amounts of muons in the earth's atmosphere, destroy the ozone layer and radioactivate the environment. The three astrophysicists who first proposed that some of the earth's great extinctions were caused by such events now propose that the radiation produced would also cause mutations that create new species in surviving life. NASA Looks Back on Mir's Bumpy Ride for Clues to the Future While NASA officials are assessing what they learned during their bumpy five-year-collaboration with the Mir crews, it also is wondering just how the money-strapped Russians will orchestrate the space station’s descent. And whether they will be able to do it safely. Surveyor probing Mars as next missions approach horizon A year ago, the world was captivated by pictures of the desolate, salmon-colored surface of Mars beamed back from NASA's Pathfinder probe. But if you thought the exploration of the Red Planet was over when the robotic lander and its tiny rover, Sojourner, died last fall, you're wrong. 3 Members of Moon Team Perish See also: 3 who helped put man on moon die in Alabama Three members of Wernher von Braun’s German rocket team that helped put Americans on the moon, died last week in Alabama. Mystery lights were meteor shower The mystery surrounding a series of lights seen high in the sky last week over western areas of the UK was solved when officials said it was caused by a meteor shower descending to earth. The Z from outer space A large meteorite is being blamed for hundreds of sightings of bright lights in the sky along the west coast of Britain on the evening of July 10. Space: the final and best frontier "I believe in math. All less-than-zero probabilities carried to infinity are certainties, which is why I know that E.T. will phone one day. Whether we’ll be able to carry a meaningful conversation is a separate topic but, given the odds, it’s a sure bet E.T. — or some other form of extra-terrestrial life — is out there." So says Athena Andreadis, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. Scientists Track Galaxy Blast Astronomers at New Mexico's Very Large Array spent a busy Fourth of July weekend listening to the echoes of a cosmic firecracker, which they believe they've tracked down to the heart of a distant galaxy. The hot topics in space science Mars, comets and asteroids are the most popular topics for missions following in the footsteps of Pathfinder and Lunar Prospector, NASA says. But just a handful of the 29 proposals will win funding. A whole lot of shakin' going on Starquakes lead to the discovery of a very weird kind of star - with an incredibly strong magnetic field - only the fourth ever discovered. A distant planet with a wide path Planet-hunting pioneers have detected yet another world circling a distant star. They say the newly found planet appears to be about 3.3 times as massive as Jupiter, with the longest known planetary orbit outside our own solar system. And that gives scientists a good chance of taking an actual picture of it. Refined view of Pathfinder landing site from Mars Global Surveyor In celebration of the one year anniversary of the landing of NASA's Mars Pathfinder on the Red Planet, scientists have released these enhanced images of the landing site taken by the orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. Astronaut Thomas speaks about life on Mir "The first few days were tough," NASA astronaut Andy Thomas told CNN in an interview July 8, summing up some of his experiences aboard the Russian space station Mir. International Space station survives senate vote The international space station prevailed July 7 in its last battle with retiring Sen. Dale Bumpers, who has tried for eight years to kill the costly, much-delayed effort to send a permanent manned laboratory into space. Impact zone of giant meteorite confirmed See also: Citing Growth Patterns, Researchers Dispute Claims Of "Nanofossils" In Martian Meteorite Following microscopic analysis of snow-samples taken last week, the impact zone of the giant meteorite that hit southern Greenland last December has been located. Millions to descend on Cornwall for solar eclipse Temporary campsites on hundreds of acres of farmland will be needed to cope with the millions coverging on Cornwall to see the total solar eclipse next year. Dust ring around star looks like another solar system See also: Nearby star system very much like our own Solar System A ring of dust particles circling a nearby star looks remarkably like the belt of comets outside Pluto and Neptune, and researchers think it could mean there are other solar systems similar to ours. Researchers Work To Explain the Mystery of Sodium Layers in Earth's Upper Atmosphere See also: Upper Atmosphere Sodium Layers Meteor Dust Some Sodium Atoms May Be By-Products of Meteors Entering the Atmosphere; Higher Sodium Layer Remains a Mystery. Challenge to Popular Theories and Newest Observations on Gamma-Ray Bursts A University of New Hampshire researcher and her colleague have uncovered new information about gamma ray bursts by looking at the bursts a little longer and a little smarter than anybody else -- using 20-year-old data to do it. Russia agrees to kill Mir early See also: Mir to Be Abandoned Around Mid-1999 Russia has decided to retire the Mir space station next June, six months earlier than expected, in recognition of the government’s financial woes, officials said July 7. Scientists find solar system's hottest surfaces on Jupiter's moon Io Hundreds of millions of miles from the sun, volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io sizzle at the highest recorded surface temperatures of any planetary body in the solar system. Another Attack on Idea of Life in Mars Meteorite Scientists launched a fresh attack on July 6 against the idea that a Martian meteorite contained evidence of life. Pleased at Pathfinder's punch NASA's Pathfinder Mission to Mars did something for NASA that no mission seemed able to accomplish since the days of Apollo: It wowed the public. Solar Eclipses on Jupiter The 16 known moons of Jupiter cast their tiny shadows on the giant planet much more frequently. Nearly every day, at least one of the moons eclipses a bit of the sun for several hours. Only once or twice each century, however, do three Jovian moons throw their shadows on the same area of the planet. Such an event took place on Nov. 10, 1997. Solar Flare Triggers Energetic Sunquake Exploding a few thousand kilometers above the sun's surface, solar flares generate a tumult of X rays, beams of charged particles, and high-speed streams of ionized gas. A new study reveals that these eruptions can produce seismic waves akin to titanic earthquakes beneath the solar surface. House Committee Approves $20 Million for Mars 2001 Mission Planetary Society Successfully Lobbies To Increase Funding for NASA's Mars Mission Slated for Launch in 2001 Mars Pathfinder Celebrates First Anniversary Scientists Make Discoveries about Mars' Water History and Rock Composition a Year after Sojourner Rolled across the Planet. X-Ray Flashes Illuminate General Relativity Observations of rapid oscillations in the intensity of X rays emitted by gas striking a neutron star's surface provide a novel test of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Take it to the Max Researchers have the first evidence of a souped-up supernova--an eruption of similar origin that generates 100 times more energy. Traditional supernovas often leave behind a compact kernet known as a neutron star, but this explosion may have given birth to a much denser remnant, a black hole. Backwards Ring around Jupiter Combining computer simulations with data gathered by a dust detector aboard the Galileo spacecraft, researchers have found evidence of a vast, faint dust ring around Jupiter. Did The Big Bang Come With Strings Attached? The power of supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) has enabled Julian Borrill of the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to model, in striking detail, a possible state of the universe only a hundred billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second (10-35 second) after the Big Bang. Scooping up a Chunk of Mars NASA is striving to ensure that an Andromeda Strain scenario won't occur a decade from now, when a small capsule containing a canister the size of a soda can, packed with soil and rock fragments from Mars, is scheduled to parachute onto Earth. Mapping the Universe Thanks to the keen eye of the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers may have accounted for virtually all of the sources of visible light in the universe after variations were analysed in the faint background glow between galaxies in the Hubble Deep Field, the tiny patch of sky that the telescope stared at for 2 weeks in late 1995. Gravity's Ring In the 1930s, Albert Einstein predicted that a massive object can act as a lens, intensifying and bending light from a body that lies behind it. The lens typically generates multiple copies of a background body or stretches its image into an arc. In rare instances, when Earth, the lens, and the distant body are exactly aligned, the distorted image takes the shape of a complete circle. Searching for the First Light When astronomers look through a telescope, it's as if they have telescope peers deeper into space, it delves further back in time. The newest generation of instruments is transporting astronomers farther into the past than ever before--to an era when the first glimmers of starlight set galaxies aflame. Asteroid Impact Does an asteroid slamming into Earth do more damage if it lands on solid ground or if it plows into the middle of the ocean? Finding Rocks in the Hubble Archives When astronomers scour the thousands of images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, they're usually seeking distant stars and galaxies. When Robin W. Evans and his colleagues sifted through the archives, they found a bounty much closer to home: 100 members of the main belt of asteroids, which lies between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. Black Hole Acts as a Cosmic 'Old Faithful.' Three teams of astronomers have linked fluctuations in X-ray emissions around a suspected black hole to bursts of infrared radiation from jets of hot matter that the object hurls outs every 30 minutes. The regularity of these eruptions prompted the scientists to liken the bright X-ray source to Yellowstone National Park's Old Faithful geyser. Homing in on Milky Way's Black Hole New measurements that track the motion of stars closer than ever before to the center of the galaxy provide "unambiguous" evidence that the Milky Way's core contains a black hole as massive as 2.6 million suns. Dust Buster Eyes Fireworks in nearby Galaxy Ten million light-years from Earth lies the nearest galaxy with a heart of fire. Powered by a central black hole that sucks in stars and gas, the giant, radio-emitting galaxy Centaurus A got a further jolt several hundred million years ago when it swallowed a disk-shaped galaxy. Japan to launch Mars probe Saturday See also: Japanese Planet-B Spacecraft Launched to Mars Japan launched its first interplanetary probe to Mars at 1812 GMT on July 3 with the future of its expensive space program resting on a successful mission. Japan plans to delay launch of space shuttle to 2003 Japan's space agency plans to postpone the launch of a Japanese-made space shuttle by three years to 2003 due to budgetary and technical difficulties, an agency spokesman said July 3. Magma Fireworks on Io See also: Galileo images reveal super-hot lava on Jupiter's moon Io and Galileo sees volcanic fireworks on Io Lava spewing from erupting volcanoes on Jupiter’s moon Io is hotter than any magma on Earth and is greater in temperature than anyone had thought. Mir to be destroyed See also: Mir Opts for Early Retirement Russia's Mir space station is to be destroyed in 2000, after 14 years orbiting the Earth. Lots More Rocks in the Sky See also: Asteroid points to unseen danger Astronomers said today they had found an asteroid in a place where they have never been found before, orbiting entirely between the Earth and the sun, and warned there may be more out there. Planetary Society Seeks to Avert Armageddon The Planetary Society seeks to avert a future "Armageddon" of an asteroid obliterating civilization by funding astronomers engaged in the search for near-earth objects. Virtual Mars Ships on CD One year after Mars Pathfinder successfully touched down on the Red Planet, RVR Software announces the release of Mars VR, a comprehensive CD-ROM on the Pathfinder Mission. Mars VR uses photographic VR of the landing site as an interface to a complete collection of Pathfinder images and science results. Lunar-A Hits More Trouble Japan's return to the moon has been delayed again following problems with the planned orbit of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science’s [ISAS] Lunar-A probe. ISAS engineers have discovered that the probe’s projected orbit could cause power shortages due to shadowing by the moon. Russian space experts postpone decision on Mir's future Russian space officials postponed a decision on whether the Mir space station will have to be discarded ahead of schedule because of a lack of government funding, a report said July 1. Efforts to recover SOHO spacecraft continue Engineers are continuing efforts to reestablish contact with the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft using NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). Officials simplify plans for 2001 robot lander on Mars A cash-strapped NASA says it is having to scuttle plans to send a robot rover to search for life on Mars in 2001, but hopes to launch it a few years later. The Red Planet Has Two Faces See also: Latest findings a year after Mars Pathfinder During its months scrambling around Mars, the rover Sojourner came across evidence of two vastly different worlds on the Red Planet: one warm and wet, and one rocky and dry. Launch Date Near for UW Mission to Collect Samples of Comet Dust It might sound like something from a popular science fiction movie, but a University of Washington astronomy professor's nearly two-decade dream of launching an unmanned spacecraft to collect interstellar dust from a comet is close to coming true.

Previous Months: Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan Dec