Universe Today - September 11, 2001

The Dutch entry in the World Solar Challenge, a 3010 km solar-powered race across Australia, was developed using the space technology and expertise of the European Space Agency. The student-driven Nuna uses high-performance solar cells that were removed from the Hubble Space Telescope during its 1993 servicing mission. The team thinks the car could reach speeds as high 190 km/h on test tracks, but they'll obey the local speed limits while crossing Australia.

After three years in space and a series near mission-ending problems, NASA's Deep Space 1 is nearing its final destination: a close encounter with Comet Borrelly on September 22. The spacecraft is expected to get within 2,000 km of the snowball and take images of its nucleus. The encounter is risky, though, and NASA doesn't think the spacecraft stands a good chance of getting much closer than 5,000 km. Even if it fails to take close-up pictures, Deep Space 1 has already served its purpose; to field test a series of new spacefaring technologies.

The latest photo released from the European Space Agency shows an impressive view of M16, aka the Eagle Nebula, which was taken by the ESA's Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). Although the photos used to make this image were taken several years ago, they were only recently combined by ESA to produce this composite photograph. The ISO operated from 1995 until 1998, and made over 30,000 observations.