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| Hayabusa's Photo of Itokawa |
| Sep 15, 2005 - Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft arrived at Asteroid Itokawa earlier this week, and now it's sending back beautiful images. This image is a composite colour image of the asteroid taken on September 12 using red, green and blue filters. It's also possible to see its irregular shape. Hayabusa will eventually land on the surface of Itokawa, collect samples to be sent back to Earth. The probe's sample return capsule is expected to return to Earth in June 2007. (Full Story) |
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| Prof. Robert Zee and Eric Caillibot put final touches on CanX-2. Image credit: U of T Click to enlarge |
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| Tiny Satellite Could Make a Big Difference |
| Sep 15, 2005 - A team of Canadian engineers have developed a tiny 3.5 kg satellite that could unleash a whole new industry of microsatellites. The Canadian Advanced Nanospace eXperiment 2 (CanX-2) is about the size of a shoebox, but it packs a mini-spectrometer that will measure greenhouse gasses - for only $1 million in development costs. Future missions will hope to demonstrate how fleets of inexpensive microsatellites might be able to serve the same function as satellites that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to design and manufacture. (Full Story) |
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| Hubble image from a sample of 20 nearby quasars. Image credit: NASA/ESA/ESO Click to enlarge |
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| Rogue Supermassive Black Hole Has No Galaxy |
| Sep 15, 2005 - The Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a supermassive black hole without a surrounding galaxy. These black holes and their galaxies are usually linked, so it's an unusual discovery. One possibility is that the host galaxy was stripped away during a collision with another galaxy. Another possibility is that the black hole is surrounded by a large amount of material, it's just dark matter, so Hubble couldn't detect it. (Full Story) |
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| Artist's concept of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image credit: NASA/JPL Click to enlarge |
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| Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is Doing Well |
| Sep 15, 2005 - In preparation for its arrival at Mars next year, NASA has begun putting the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter through its paces. Controllers pointed its three cameras at the Moon and the stars, They also tested the spacecraft's onboard Context Camera and Optical Navigation Camera, and also its high-gain antenna for transmitting back to Earth. MRO was able to send back 75 gigabits of data in less than 24 hours, which is a new record for communicating with a spacecraft. It will enter Mars orbit on March 10, 2006. (Full Story) |
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