Space News for February 14, 2002
Astronomy
Moon Could Still Have Molten Interior
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| Image credit: NASA |
Astronomers have calculated that the Moon, pulled by the gravity of the Earth and the Sun, may bulge as much as 10 centimetres over the course of its 27 day journey around our planet. The bulging could be caused by a molten slush surrounding the Moon's core. The measurements were gathered by firing a laser pulse from the Earth to the Moon, and it measures the round-trip distance to an accuracy of 2 centimetres.
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Feb 14, 2002, 2:55pm
Astronomy
New Images from Mars Global Surveyor Released
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| Image credit: NASA |
NASA's Mars Global Surveyor began its second year of extended operations at the beginning of February, and recently delivered a whole new batch of images of the Red Planet. These images were taken over course of the spacecraft's first year of extended operations.
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Feb 14, 2002, 2:32pm
Astronomy
New Evidence Supports Formation Theory for Rapidly Spinning Pulsars
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| Photo credit: ESA |
Combining images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as data from radio observatories, astronomers from the European Space Agency have new understanding of a very unusual star system - a fast spinning pulsar and a giant red star. Although 90 of these "millisecond" pulsars have been discovered by astronomers, they haven't figured out what gets them spinning so quickly. Perhaps through absorbing matter from another star, the pulsar is spun up by the transfer of energy that occurs when material is consumed.
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Feb 13, 2002, 3:59pm
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