www.spacedaily.com
June 04, 2012 |
Why SETI Counts Sydney, Australia (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - Are we alone in the universe? It's probably the greatest question posed by space exploration. It fascinates scientists and the general public. It's important and deeply compelling. We want to know, and we have ways of finding out. It doesn't cost much to operate a SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) program. Some space missions cost billions of dollars. Most cost hundreds of millions ...more | |
What will China's Taikonauts do aboard Tiangong 1? Isle of Man, UK (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - Launch date is looming for three Chinese taikonauts, including the country's first woman in space, who will attempt to manually dock their Shenzhou 9 spacecraft at the orbiting Tiangong 1 space module. The docking will represent an important milestone, and the accomplishment of a key capability, on the Chinese roadmap towards establishing Space Station towards the end of the decade. But question ...more | |
It's a Sim: Out in Deep Space, New Horizons Practices the 2015 Pluto Encounter Laurel MD (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - The science instruments aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft were running at full tilt, with cameras snapping images, sensors scanning the space environment and the communications system trading radio signals with ground stations on Earth. No matter that the target of this activity - the Pluto system - was still about three years and 850 million miles away. On May 29-30, New Horizons "thought" ...more | |
Dawn deep in the asteroid belt orbiting Vesta Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 04, 2012 - Far from Earth, on the opposite side of the sun, deep in the asteroid belt, Dawn is gradually spiraling around the giant protoplanet Vesta. Under the gentle pressure of its uniquely efficient ion propulsion system, the explorer is scaling the gravitational mountain from its low-altitude mapping orbit (LAMO) to its second high-altitude mapping orbit (HAMO2). Dawn spent nearly five months in ...more | |
There's more star-stuff out there but it's not Dark Matter Canberra, Australia (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - More atomic hydrogen gas - the ultimate fuel for stars - is lurking in today's Universe than we thought, CSIRO astronomer Dr Robert Braun has found. This is the first accurate measurement of this gas in galaxies close to our own. Just after the Big Bang the Universe's matter was almost entirely hydrogen atoms. Over time this gas of atoms came together and generated galaxies, stars and plan ...more | |
Catching solar particles infiltrating Earth's atmosphere Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - On May 17, 2012 an M-class flare exploded from the sun. The eruption also shot out a burst of solar particles traveling at nearly the speed of light that reached Earth about 20 minutes after the light from the flare. An M-class flare is considered a "moderate" flare, at least ten times less powerful than the largest X-class flares, but the particles sent out on May 17 were so fast and ener ...more | |
The 2012 Transit of Venus Huntsville AL (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - On June 5th, 2012, Venus will pass across the face of the sun, producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again. Transits of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June's transit, the bookend of a 2004-2012 pair, won't be repeated until the year 2117. Fortunately, the event is widely visible. Observers on seven continents, even a sli ...more | |
Tiny Planet-Finding Mirrors Borrow from Webb Telescope Playbook Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - NASA's next flagship mission - the James Webb Space Telescope - will carry the largest primary mirror ever deployed. This segmented behemoth will unfold to 21.3 feet in diameter once the observatory reaches its orbit in 2018. A team of scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., now is developing an instrument that would image and characterize planets beyond the sol ...more | |
Venus, a Planetary Portrait of Inner Beauty Pasadena CA (JPL) Jun 04, 2012 - A Venus transit across the face of the sun is a relatively rare event - occurring in pairs with more than a century separating each pair. There have been all of 53 transits of Venus across the sun between 2000 B.C. and the last one in 2004. On Wednesday, June 6 (Tuesday, June 5 from the Western Hemisphere), Earth gets another shot at it - and the last for a good long while. But beyond this uniqu ...more | |
Intelsat 19 Satellite Update Luxembourg (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - Intelsat has reported a delay in deploying one of the two solar arrays on the Intelsat 19 satellite, which was launched by Sea Launch last week. Intelsat and Space Systems/Loral, the manufacturer of the satellite, are investigating the cause and are pursuing corrective actions. The spacecraft is secure at this time in geostationary transfer orbit. Intelsat 19 is the planned rep ...more | |
Sea Launch Delivers the Intelsat 19 Spacecraft into Orbit Bern, Switzerland (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - Sea Launch AG launched Thursday the Intelsat 19 satellite from the Equator on the ocean-based Launch PlatformOdyssey, completing its eleventh mission for Intelsat S.A. and marking Sea Launch's first of three planned missions in 2012. The Zenit-3SL rocket carrying the spacecraft lifted off at 22:23 Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) on Thursday, May 31st (05:23 UTC/GMT, Friday, June 1) from the la ...more | |
USAF Awards Lockheed Martin GPS III Flight Operations Contract Newtown PA (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - The U.S. Air Force has awarded Lockheed Martin a $68 million contract to provide mission readiness, launch, early orbit checkout and on-orbit operations engineering support for the first two GPS III space vehicles. The first and second GPS III satellites are on schedule for launch availability in 2014 and 2015, respectively. The GPS III program will affordably replace aging GPS satellites ...more | |
Geoengineering could lead to a whiter sky Washington DC (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - One idea for fighting global warming is to increase the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere, scattering incoming solar energy away from the Earth's surface. But scientists theorize that this solar geoengineering could have a side effect of whitening the sky during the day. New research indicates that blocking 2 percent of the sun's light would make the sky three-to-five times brighter, as well ...more | |
James Cook and the Transit of Venus Huntsville AL (SPX) Jun 04, 2012 - Every ~120 years a dark spot glides across the Sun. Small, inky-black, almost perfectly circular, it's no ordinary sunspot. Not everyone can see it, but some who do get the strangest feeling, of standing, toes curled in the damp sand, on the beach of a South Pacific isle.... City odors drifted in from Plymouth, across the ship, shoving aside the salt air. Sea gulls fluttered upward, screec ...more | |
In tree rings, Japanese scientists find 8th-century mystery Paris (AFP) June 3, 2012 - In the late eighth century, Earth was hit by a mystery blast of cosmic rays, according to a Japanese study that found a relic of the powerful event in cedar trees. Analysis of two ancient trees found a surge in carbon-14 - a carbon isotope that derives from cosmic radiation - which occurred just in AD 774 and AD 775, the team report in the journal Nature on Sunday. Earth is battered by ...more | |
E3 to showcase big videogame titles, hot trends San Francisco (AFP) June 2, 2012 - Sequels to blockbuster console titles and play on smartphones or tablets will be showcased with Times Square-like glitz starting Tuesday at the E3 videogame extravaganza in Los Angeles. Nintendo will tout its coming Wii U console as well as videogames being tailored for play on the beefed up console it hopes will re-ignite passion sparked by its groundbreaking Wii devices released in 2006. ...more | |
Venus, the planet of broken dreams Paris (AFP) June 3, 2012 - When Venus next week eclipses Earth, an event that will not occur again for more than a century, millions of skygazers may have romantic thoughts about our closest neighbour and its twilight beauty. But the truth is that Venus is a hell that would have surpassed even the imagination of Dante, and it has caused more grief and disappointment than any other planet in the Solar System. Early ...more | |
UT's Josh Emery Uncovers Clues About Asteroid That Will Pass Near Earth Tucson AZ (SPX) Jun 01, 2012 - The work of a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professor has helped reveal a rare orbital shift and the density of an asteroid that will pass close to Earth. Josh Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, and the team of the NASA asteroid sample return mission called OSIRIS-REx have measured the weight and orbit of 1999 RQ36. They have found the asteroid has a low dens ...more | |
NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-On Collision Baltimore MD (SPX) Jun 01, 2012 - NASA astronomers announced Thursday they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. The Milky Way is destined to get a major makeover during the encounter, which is predicted to happen four billion years from now. It is likely the sun will be flu ...more | |
Astronomers Probe 'Evaporating' Planet Around Nearby Star with Hobby-Eberly Telescope Fort Davis, TX (SPX) Jun 01, 2012 - Astronomers from The University of Texas at Austin and Wesleyan University have used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at UT Austin's McDonald Observatory to confirm that a Jupiter-size planet in a nearby solar system is dissolving, albeit excruciatingly slowly, because of interactions with its parent star. Their findings could help astronomers better understand star-planet interactions in other star s ...more |