Not surprisingly, NASA announced this week that it was dismissing astronaut Lisa Nowak. I’m sure you have no idea who I’m talking about.
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Sunlight Puts the Spin on Asteroids
Astronomers have theorized that light from the Sun influences the speed at which asteroids spin, and now they’ve gathered the evidence to back it up.
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What’s Up this Week: March 5 – March 11, 2007
Monday, March 5 – Today is the birthday of Gerardus Mercator, famed mapmaker, who started his life in 1512. Mercator’s time was a rough one for astronomy, but despite a prison sentence and the threat of torture and death for his “beliefs,” he went on to design a celestial globe in the year 1551.
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Podcast: The Largest Structures in the Universe
This week we continue the story of galaxy formation, learning how groups of galaxies come together to form the biggest structures around – galaxy superclusters. And when you look at the Universe at this scale, environment is everything.
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Large Lake Surrounds an Island on Titan
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has been turning up new images of features that look like lakes on the surface of Saturn’s moon Titan. This latest image shows a large lake that appears to be surrounding an island.
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Chandra and Hubble Imaged Jupiter During New Horizons Flyby
While NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft was making its gravity assisted flyby past Jupiter, some friends back at home were watching to help give the science some perspective. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory gathered images of Jupiter for several days before the flyby, and the combined photographs were released today.
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The Perfect Crater for a Moon Settlement?
Although ESA’s SMART-1 was smashed into the Moon in 2006, it had the opportunity to gather a tremendous amount of science. Its view of this crater in particular has given ESA scientists the feeling that they might be looking at the perfect spot for a future permanent base on the Moon.
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NASA Cutbacks Will Delay Moon Missions
The New York Times is reporting that recent cutbacks to NASA’s budgets will probably push back the human return to the Moon. Instead of retiring the Space Shuttle and sending the first spacecraft back to the Moon in 2014, the first missions won’t be until 2015 instead, according to NASA administrator Michael Griffin.
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Stephen Hawking Will Experience Zero Gravity
Famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking is scheduled to take a ride on the vomit comet, and experience a bit of what it’s like to fly in zero gravity.
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Unique New Perspectives of Saturn
Now flying in a polar orbit around Saturn, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is now sending back completely unique images of Saturn, seen from overhead. The photograph that I’ve attached to this story shows Saturn seen from almost directly overhead. The planet itself has been removed, so just the rings are visible. But there are other images taken over the last two months.
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