|
|
| The Ends of the Earth |
| Aug 18, 2005 - Pamela Conrad is an astrobiologist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She recently gave a lecture explaining how to searching cold deserts on Earth will help scientists understand environments that life could be hiding in the rest of the Solar System. The following article is the first part of an edited transcript of her presentation. (Full Story) |
|
|
|
|
|
| Supernova Shockwave Slams into Stellar Bubble |
| Aug 18, 2005 - One of the most famous supernovae in recent memory is SN 1987A, which exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Before its death, the star produced a ferocious stellar wind that carved out a large bubble in the surrounding, colder gas. When it went supernova, a shockwave traveled out in space, and astronomers have been waiting in anticipation for the shockwave to slam into the edge of this bubble. New images from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows that this stage now appears to be underway. (Full Story) |
|
|
|
 |
| Spectrum indicating atmosphere over rings. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSI/SWRI/UCL Click to enlarge |
|
| Saturn's Rings Have an Atmosphere of their Own |
| Aug 18, 2005 - Saturn's rings are separate from the planet they circle, and then even have an atmosphere of their own. During several flybys, Cassini has been able to detect very small amounts of molecular oxygen floating around the rings. Molecules of water are broken apart by ultraviolet light from the Sun; the hydrogen and some of the oxygen is lost into space, and some of the oxygen is frozen back into the rings. But there's enough of a cloud of these atoms around the rings that this process must be ongoing and kept in a continual balance. (Full Story) |
|
|
|
|
|
| Rhea's Southern Pole |
| Aug 17, 2005 - NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this picture of Rhea, one of Saturn's moons. The reasonably close view is of the moon's southern polar region which has been extensively cratered during its long history. Cassini acquired this view on July 14, 2005 when it made a close flyby, passing only 239,000 km (149,000 miles) away from the moon. The large, well-defined oval-shaped crater on the upper right is approximately 115 km (71 miles) across. (Full Story) |
|
|
|
|
|
| Predicting Times for Clear Space Weather |
| Aug 17, 2005 - When astronauts will be spending more time in space, it'll be helpful to know when there'll be clear "space weather", to minimize their exposure to dangerous amounts of radiation. NASA scientists have developed a better understanding of the underlying causes of solar flares, and think they can now predict times for "clear skies". Areas likely to explode as flares happen when magnetic fields of different alignments merge together on the Sun's surface. Electrical currents must then build up for several hours before a flare erupts. (Full Story) |
|
|
|
|
