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| Articles on Universe Today |
Sep 4, 2003 - Hi folks, I've made a pretty signicant change to the way Universe Today is structured with this issue. It looks similar at first glance, but instead of only linking to outside press releases, I'm reformating them and incorporating them into Universe Today. I decided to do this after browsing through some of my older archives and I realized how poorly outside websites maintain their older content. A lot of my older links are just dead, which is too bad, because the material is sometimes only a few months old.
I'm still going to link to outside articles as well, such as the first story today, which goes out to Yahoo news. I'll try and figure out a way to distinguish between the two if that's a concern for you. I'm still maintaining a link to the original source at the end of the story, so you can still see the original press release (as long as it lasts).
Let me know what you think. In other news, it looks like the AOL subscribers got the newsletter yesterday after silence for several weeks. I'm not sure how long AOL will let you get this newsletter, so if you stop getting it again, please complain to AOL and demand they let mail from info@universetoday.com through.
Thanks!
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today |
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| Image credit: NASA |
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| Senate Inquiry Comes Down Hard on NASA |
| Sep 4, 2003 - With the Columbia accident report complete, US senators began a series of inquiries into how NASA has responded to the challenges that its culture and lack of safety concerns ultimately contributed to the shuttle's destruction. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe received stinging criticism from the Senate committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that NASA hadn't fired enough people after the accident - O'Keefe felt it was pointless to name people responsible for the accident if they hadn't acted maliciously. The committee then demanded that NASA prepare a report to analyze the cost and benefits of space flight. (Source: AP) |
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| Image credit: NASA |
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| Grunsfeld Becomes NASA's Chief Scientist |
| Sep 4, 2003 - NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announced today that astronaut Dr. John Grunsfeld would replace Dr. Shannon Lucid as the agency's Chief Scientist. Grunsfeld is a veteran of four space shuttle flights, including two servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope and has studied astronomy and physics throughout his career. Lucid will return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to assist with the shuttle's return to flight activities. |
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| Image credit: NASA |
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| Solar Flares Shuffle Antimatter Around |
| Sep 4, 2003 - Astronomers believe that the Sun creates and destroys antimatter as part of its natural process of fusion reaction, but new observations from NASA's Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) spacecraft has brought new insights into the process. The antimatter is formed in solar flares when fast-moving particles accelerated by the flare are smashed into slower-moving particles in the Sun's atmosphere (enough antimatter is created in just one flare to power the United States for two years). Surprisingly, the antimatter isn't destroyed right away; instead, it's carried by the flare to another region of the Sun before being destroyed. |
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| Image credit: NASA |
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| SIRTF Takes First Images |
| Sep 4, 2003 - The last of the Great Observatories, NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility, gathered first light from two of its instruments: the infrared array camera and the multi-band imaging photometer. These tests are part of the observatory's two-month in-orbit checkout, which will be followed by a one-month verification phase. Operators will continue to fine-tune SIRTF's focus and test out another instrument later this month. Once it's finally ready for scientific duty, SIRTF will study galaxies and stars in the infrared spectrum and search for signs of planetary disks forming around young stars to help us understand how our own solar system formed. |
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