the UNIVERSE TODAY Space Exploration News From Around the Internet Updated Every Weekday.
http://www.universetoday.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] An HTML version including pictures is available at: http://www.universetoday.com For information on unsubscribing or changing your email address, check the bottom of this newsletter. ************************************** WHAT'S UP THIS WEEK - DEC 20 - DEC 26, 2004 Dec 20, 2004 - Season's Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Take the time from your busy holiday schedule to relax with some astronomy. There will be three minor meteor showers this week: the Coma Berenicids, Delta Arietid and the Ursids. The waxing Moon will become our guide as we locate historic variable Mira. Mare Humorum and Crater Gassendi are great features to learn about on the lunar surface and we'll travel to the outer arm of our own galaxy to study a multiple star system - Sigma Orionis. Not enough? Then I have a special and very challenging surprise for you on Christmas Day! Although the Moon goes full during this seven-day period, those who are just beginning with new telescopes will appreciate its presence as an easy "pointer" to Saturn. So lift your eyes toward the heavens and enjoy the bright stars of Winter... Because here's what's up! http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/whatsup_dec20_2004.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/whatsup_dec20_2004.html";>AOL Link</a> ARIANE LOFTS 7 SATELLITES AT ONCE Dec 20, 2004 - An Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the European Space Agency's launch centre in French Guiana on Saturday, carrying a French military surveillance satellite and 6 additional microsatellites. The Helios 2A satellite is part of Europe's spy satellite network that will be independent of the United States'. The microsats included 4 Essaim satellites designed to demonstrate technology for a future network; the Parasol atmospheric sciences satellite, and a Spanish-built Nanosat, which will also demonstrate technology. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/ariane_lofts_7_sats.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/ariane_lofts_7_sats.html";>AOL Link</a> LIGHTING STORMS ON SATURN Dec 20, 2004 - One instrument on board NASA's Cassini spacecraft allows it to detect lightning. As part of initial tests, the spacecraft was able to detect lightning on Earth from a distance of 89,000 km (55,300 miles). As it approached Saturn last July, it began detecting lightning on the Ringed Planet at a distance of 161 million km (100 million miles). This means that lightning on Saturn is 1 million times stronger than on our own planet. One possible reason is because the gas giants could have magnetic fields similar to the Sun, which rotates at different speeds at different latitudes. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/lightning_storms_saturn.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/lightning_storms_saturn.html";>AOL Link</a> SATURN'S ENVIRONMENT IS DRIVEN BY ICE Dec 17, 2004 - Ice particles are a key part of Saturn's changing environment according to a new paper published by Larry Esposito from the University of Colorado at Boulder. According to Esposito, much of Saturn's system is filled with ice, and its components: oxygen and hydrogen, which extend millions of kilometres outward from the planet. Researchers are seeing large fluctuations in the amount of oxygen, which could be caused by small, icy moons which are colliding with the planet's E ring, which produces small grains of ice that yield oxygen atoms. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_driven_ice.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/saturn_driven_ice.html";>AOL Link</a> ATLAS V LAUNCHES AMC-16 Dec 17, 2004 - An Atlas V rocket successfully lifted off this morning carrying an AMC-16 broadcast satellite into orbit. The rocket launched at 1207 UTC (7:07 am EST) from Cape Canaveral, and put the satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit nearly two hours later. Its final location will be at 85-degrees West, where it will provide broadcast services to the Americas. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/atlas_amc16.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/atlas_amc16.html";>AOL Link</a> TITAN'S LAYERED ATMOSPHERE Dec 17, 2004 - On Cassini's recent flyby of Titan, scientists discovered that Saturn's largest moon has a surprising number of layers of haze in its atmosphere. These layers of haze extend several hundred kilometres above the moon's surface. This image was taken in ultraviolet, and then colourized on computer to look like natural colour. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/titan_layered_atmosphere.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/titan_layered_atmosphere.html";>AOL Link</a> CASSINI'S APPROACH TO DIONE Dec 17, 2004 - Cassini took this image of Dione set against giant Saturn as it approached the icy moon for its December 14th flyby. This picture, taken from 603,000 kilometers (375,000 miles), shows how Dione has colour variations across its surface, but it's largely gray. Several oval shaped storms are visible raging across Saturn's banded atmosphere. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_approach_dione.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_approach_dione.html";>AOL Link</a> SOOTY NEBULA AROUND A SUN LIKE STAR Dec 16, 2004 - The Subaru telescope captured this image of a dusty planetary nebula surrounding a star similar to our own Sun at the end of its life. Located 5,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, the nebula is very similar to the more famous Ring Nebula. When they reach the end of their lives, stars like our own Sun shed layers of gas and dust which pile up around the star, and are pushed outward. In this nebula, the material has reached a distance of 100 times the size of our Solar System. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/soot_nebula_sun_like.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/soot_nebula_sun_like.html";>AOL Link</a> WHAT IS THE SHAPE OF THE HELIX NEBULA? Dec 16, 2004 - The shape of the Helix Nebula has always been a bit of a mystery to astronomers; some theorized that it's donut-shaped, or it could even resemble a snake-like coil. But new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope have helped to shed some light on this issue. Researchers tracked the speed of material being expended from the central dying star, and came to the conclusion that it's actually two gaseous disks which are perpendicular to each other. One disk was expelled 6,600 years ago, and the other was fired off 12,000 years ago. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/new_ideas_helix_nebula.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/new_ideas_helix_nebula.html";>AOL Link</a> NEW STORMS SEEN ON TITAN Dec 16, 2004 - Astronomers had seen storms around Titan's south pole before, but now they've been discovered at the moon's mid-latitudes as well. The discovery was made using the Gemini North and Keck 2 observatories, which have adaptive optics systems capable of resolving Saturn's largest moon with great detail. These storms could be created by surface activities, like cryovolcanoes which could spew an icy mix of chemicals into the atmosphere. It could also be caused by seasonal temperature changes, like the weather here on Earth. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/new_storms_seen_titan.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/new_storms_seen_titan.html";>AOL Link</a> CASSINI'S FIRST FLYBY OF DIONE Dec 15, 2004 - Just days after completing its second flyby of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, Cassini proceeded on to its next target: Dione, Saturn's 4th largest moon. The spacecraft came within just 81,000 kilometres (50,600 miles) of the moon and sent back a stream of close up images of its strange surface, which are now being analyzed by scientists. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_first_dione_flyby.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/cassini_first_dione_flyby.html";>AOL Link</a> RADIATION CONCENTRATES DURING SOLAR STORMS Dec 15, 2004 - Scientists were surprised to learn that the Earth's magnetic field can concentrate radiation from the Sun during powerful solar storms, even in places that were previously thought to be safe. One region is the gap between the two Van Allen radiation belts that surround our planet, which resemble two donuts, one inside the other. In between these belts is a relatively safe area that could be prime real estate for satellites because of the low radiation levels. During the extreme solar weather last year, that safe zone actually filled up with radiation and became quite hazardous for more than five weeks. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/radiation_concentrates.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/radiation_concentrates.html";>AOL Link</a> EXPERIMENTS CHOSEN FOR MARS SCIENCE LABORATORY Dec 15, 2004 - NASA has selected eight proposals for experiments that will be installed on the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover, which will launch for the Red Planet in 2009. The instruments proposed for the minivan-sized rover include: a stereo video camera, a laser that can blast material off from 10 metres, a microscope, an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer, an X-ray diffraction/X-ray fluorescence instrument, a radiation detector, a descent camera, and a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer which would be able to detect organic compounds and chemicals produced by bacteria. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/experiments_chosen_msl.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/experiments_chosen_msl.html";>AOL Link</a> DEEP IMPACT PREPARED FOR LAUNCH Dec 14, 2004 - Engineers are making the final preparations for the launch of NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft, due to lift off from Cape Canaveral on January 12, 2005. The spacecraft will make a six-month journey to reach the nucleus of Comet Tempel 1, and then deploy a probe that will crash into it at 37,000 km/h (23,000 mph). The 1-metre square copper probe will completely vapourize, and should carve out a hole the size of the Roman Coliseum, which Deep Impact will be able to study as it passes the comet shortly afterwards. The impact will also be recorded by Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra, and dozens of Earth-based observatories. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/deep_impact_prepared.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/deep_impact_prepared.html";>AOL Link</a> ROVERS FIND ANOTHER INDICATION OF MARTIAN WATER Dec 14, 2004 - NASA's Spirit Mars rover has found even more evidence that there was liquid water in the Red Planet's past. Scientists have identified a mineral called geothite, which is similar to the jarosite found by Opportunity, and forms only in the presence of water (gaseous, liquid or ice). The rovers previously found hematite, but this can sometimes form without water. Spirit will now climb further up the Columbia Hills to attempt to answer if the water was present on the surface, or just pooled underground. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rovers_more_water_evidence.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/rovers_more_water_evidence.html";>AOL Link</a> PULSAR IS EVEN DENSER THAN PREVOUSLY THOUGHT Dec 14, 2004 - The Chandra X-Ray Observatory took a good long look at a pulsar and found that it's cooling rapidly, and suggests that it has matter packed much more densely than scientists were expecting. An international team of astronomers used Chandra to measure the pulsar at the centre of nebula 3C58, which is the remnant from a supernova that exploded in 1181. In less than 800 years, it has cooled to less than 1 million degrees Celsius - for pulsars, that's cold. The cooling depends on the density of the matter in the pulsar. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/pulsar_ultra_dense.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/pulsar_ultra_dense.html";>AOL Link</a> CASSINI FLIES PAST MYSTERIOUS TITAN AGAIN Dec 14, 2004 - NASA's Cassini spacecraft swept past Titan for the second time yesterday, this time on a more direct course, and passed by 1,200 kilometres above the surface. Once again the spacecraft's cameras took hundreds of images as Cassini drew closer to Titan, revealing the same surface features now associated with the landing site of the Huygens probe that is set to decend to Titan's surface in mid January. http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/second_titan_flyby.html <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/second_titan_flyby.html";>AOL Link</a> ----------------------------------------------------- All contents copyright (c) 2004 Universe Today -- To unsubscribe from: Universe Today - Weekly Edition (Text), just follow this link: http://www.universetoday.com/mojo/mojo.cgi?f=u&l=wk%2dtext&[EMAIL PROTECTED]&p=4996766 Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.
