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| Image credit: NASA/JPL |
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| First Public Mars Images Released |
| Sep 12, 2003 - For the past few weeks, NASA has been letting the public select targets for the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, and the first image was released today. The location was the summit crater of a giant volcano called Pavonis Mons - the walls and floor of the crater are covered with thick dust. It was suggested by U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Robert F. Sanders, of Jacksonville, N.C. from the hundreds of selections submitted so far. Mars Global Surveyor has taken 120,000 images of the planet's surface in high detail, but this is only 3% of the entire planet. |
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| Image credit: NASA/JPL |
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| Galileo Will Plunge Into Jupiter on September 21 |
| Sep 12, 2003 - Time is running out for NASA's Galileo spacecraft. After eight years of loyal service imaging Jupiter and its moons, NASA controllers have aimed it at the gas giant. On September 21, 2003, Galileo will crash into Jupiter and be destroyed; this will prevent any chance the spacecraft will unintentionally crash into Europa and contaminate the liquid ocean. NASA is planning a series of live press conferences to explain the end of the mission and discuss Galileo's discoveries. |
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| Image credit: ESA |
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| Iraq Oil Fire Seen From Space |
| Sep 12, 2003 - The European Space Agency's Envisat environmental satellite captured this image of a burning oil pipeline in northern Iraq. The immense black cloud stretched over thousands of square kilometres in the valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The pipeline transfers oil from Kirkuk to Baija, and another photo from Envisat shows how the area looked before the fire. |
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| Image credit: ESO |
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| Detailed Study of Comet LINEAR |
| Sep 12, 2003 - A team of European astronomers have used the 8.2-metre VLT KUEYEN telescope to make detailed observations of Comet LINEAR. The observations were made in mid-March 2002, when the comet was 180 million kilometres away from the Earth. A special instrument on KUEYEN, the UVES spectrograph, was used to analyze the composition of the comet and was found to have an abundance of materials that would have been essential for the formation of life on Earth. |
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