Have you ever replaced the light bulb inside your fridge? Take a look next time. It draws about 25 watts of power. Now imagine this bulb on a spacecraft somewhere around Neptune and it's flashing madly away, trying to send a signal back to Earth. Somehow we need to see these flashes. Sound impossible? Well almost, but Douglas Mudgway in his book Big Dish describes the system, in particular the antenna sites, that was put into place to capture just this type of signal.
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Launched from "Cape Kennedy" just 13 months of one another in 1972/73, Pioneer 10 and 11 are still up there though no longer kicking. But well before last phone home (in 2003 and 1995 respectively), the notes each pair played had changed pitch unexpectedly - they were slowly losing speed. Could the Pioneering Pair have been feeling a bit in the "dark" (as in "dark matter" or "dark energy")? Were they having a "Solar Quadrupole" moment? Could n-dimensional "branes" be behind it? Or has "back-gravity" from behind the Sun played a role? Before things get too exotic, maybe there's a simpler explanation.
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A powerful Proton K rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Tuesday night, carrying a Russian Express-AM2 communications satellite. It lifted off at 2231 GMT (5:31 pm EST), and placed its payload into a geosynchronous transfer orbit a few hours later. The Express-AM2 satellite will provide broadcast television and other communication services for Russia and Southeast Asia.
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It's for people. That's why we explore space, push ourselves to the next level, and continually strive forward. Machines may be the advance guard but they can never capture our hearts and souls. Perhaps people may forget this adage, but, under Ron Howard's direction, the cast and members of "Apollo 13" put on a memorable drama and remind us that people are number one.
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After a long life, most sun-like stars grow into red giants once they've depleted most of their hydrogen fuel. The relatively small region around the star which is just at the right temperature to support liquid water will extend as the red giant expands. This means that previously frozen planets (like Mars) could thaw out and life might have a second chance to happen in a solar system. There are currently 150 red giant stars within 100 light-years of the Earth, and many of these could be a place to search for life in addition to main-sequence stars similar to our own Sun.
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Galaxies are built up over time through a series of collisions with other galaxies. Each time this happens, clouds of gas and dust collapse and become regions of furious star formation. The European Space Agency's ISO infrared space telescope has shown the early stage of a collision between two galaxies (NGC 4038/4039) 60 million light-years away. The overlapping region between the galaxies is very rich in molecular hydrogen in an excited state. The shock waves are just starting to collapse the gas, and should lead to starbirth in the next few million years.
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The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft took this image of the Medusa Fossae Region on the Red Planet. This is an unusual region of Mars that was probably built up by a series of volcanic flows or rains of ash, and then partially eroded by water. Finally, a large asteroid, several kilometres across, struck the region and "splashed" ejecta onto the plateau.
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Some current models of galaxy formation predict that large spirals such as the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy should have more satellite galaxies than are currently known to astronomers. Many of these galaxies should be much smaller than those already discovered. Astronomers reviewing data from the automated Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have now added a tenth satellite to the Milky Way's dwarf spheroidal galaxy contingent and this one is a real lightweight.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! This week will bring some excitement as asteroid Pallas flies through the galaxy fields of Virgo and the Moon occults Antares for Hawaii. We'll focus on exploring some strange and unusual nebulae, and learn why it's "aurora season". The week will end with the several meteor streams and the opposition of Jupiter. So grab those binoculars, set up the telescope and hope for clear skies, because...
Here's what's up!
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The astronauts on board the International Space Station spent a few hours walking around in space today. They installed new antennas to help guide the new European "Jules Verne" cargo ship when it launches next year. They also released a tiny Russian satellite by hand - flight engineer Salizhan Sharipov "threw" it off the station at a velocity of about 1 metre/second. The whole spacewalk finished ahead of schedule, and the two men returned inside after spending about 4.5 hours in space.
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A team of European astronomers has found some unusual objects in the central part of our galaxy which are emitting very high-energy gamma rays. What's strange, though, is these objects are invisible in the optical and X-ray spectra. So what they are is a complete mystery. Not only that, but these objects are also quite large; possibly on the order of several light years across. The observations were done using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) telescopes in Namibia.
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This is a satellite photograph of two huge sandy regions in the Fezzan region of Southwest Libya, near the border of Algeria. A persistent high-pressure system keeps this region of Libya completely dry for years at a time. The photograph was taken by the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite using its Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS).
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When a 10-km (6-mile), dinosaur-killing asteroid struck the Earth 65 million years ago, it released so much energy that it vaporized rock, which then fell like rain around the world. Scientists now think that these droplets of rock, called spherules, condensed out of a cloud of water vapour that surrounded the Earth shortly after the impact. They were able to trace the composition of the spherules back to the original Chicxulub impact crater, demonstrating that the material came from the Earth, and not the asteroid itself.
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NASA announced on Wednesday their first Centennial Prizes, which will reward the development of new technologies for space exploration. The first is the Tether Challenge, where various teams will compete to see who can built the strongest cable material. In the Beam Challenge, teams will build power transmitters that send energy wirelessly to a robot climber - the winner's robot will lift the most weight to the top of a 50-metre cable. The winner of each prize will be awarded $50,000. Follow on challenges are planned for next year, and will award even higher prizes.
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Officials announced on Tuesday that Greece has formally become the 16th country to join the European Space Agency. The country's Hellenic National Space Committee had been participating with the ESA since the 1990s, exchanging information, fellowship awards and access to databases and laboratories, but it only applied for official inclusion in 2003.
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A new astronomical survey is in the works to help uncover the source of the mysterious dark energy which is accelerating the expansion of the Universe. Set to begin in 2009, the Dark Energy Survey will collect data on approximately 300 million galaxies, reaching back two-thirds of the history of the Universe. A 520-megapixel camera will be installed onto the 4-metre Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, allowing astronomers to survey the sky 10 times faster than they could before.
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NASA's Spitzer telescope has detected the light from distant planets for the first time. Until now, extrasolar planets have only been discovered indirectly, by the effect of their gravity on their parent star. Astronomers first detected two planets using indirect methods, and then used Spitzer to perform followup observation with its infrared instruments. They detected the difference in star brightness when the planet was in front and behind the star, and were able to calculate how much of this light was supplied by the planet.
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The Milky Way has several star clusters; collections of stars pulling each other into a tight group. But now astronomers have located a super star cluster, containing hundreds of thousands of stars in a region only 6 light-years across. It's called Westerlund 1, and nobody discovered it before now because it's hidden behind thick clouds of dust. Astronomers used several of European Southern Observatory's infrared telescopes to peer through the dust and see the super cluster's true size.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! With a full Moon this week, it will be hard to find things to do under the stars - or will it? We begin the week with morning observations of Comet LINEAR and move on towards meteor showers, variable and double stars and a Jupiter/Moon conjunction with an occultation for southern Australia. We'll explore lunar features and rudimentary astrophotography as well as just have some fun. So take out those telescopes and binoculars, because...
Here's what's up!
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All Quasar's have black holes for hearts - but that doesn't mean they are unfriendly. In fact, 9 billion light year distant QSO2237+0305 may like us so much that it wants to make sure we see it even though it is actually hidden by a much nearer spiral galaxy. What can we learn from QSO2237+0305? For one, the cross that bears Einstein's name can tell us a lot about space-time curvature. For another, it can teach us invaluable lessons about how to see things otherwise hidden from view. If you have access to the scope and the skies, you too can see what the whole spectacle is all about.
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As part of its new Vision for Space Exploration, NASA will first be returning to the Moon before sending human explorers to Mars. Although Mars is a much more Earth like environment, with an atmosphere, similar length of day and large amounts of water, the Moon is going to be the agency's first target. Why? Mainly, it's much closer, so astronauts can practice working in an extreme environment close to home before making the much more difficult and riskier journey to Mars.
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Officials from the European Space Agency and Indian Space Research Organisation have approved on a cooperative project to send a spacecraft to the Moon. ISRO will launch Chandrayaan-1 in 2007/2008 to analyze the Moon to help understand its origin and evolution. Europe will provide three scientific instruments identical to ones on SMART-1, which is currently orbiting the Moon.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft was recently in a lucky position in space earlier this month to watch its own private lunar eclipse, as one of Saturn's moons (Mimas) passed in front of another (Janus). Cassini's camera was rolling the whole time, and the spacecraft captured 37 images that have been stitched together into a movie of the event. Some large terrain is visible on Mimas, including its gigantic crater (the one that makes it look like the Death Star from Star Wars).
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An international team of astrophysicists have developed a new theory to explain the accelerating expansion of the Universe, known as "dark energy". Instead of a mysterious energy which is pushing matter apart at an accelerating rate, the team believes it could be the natural outcome of ripples in space and time created during the earliest moments of inflation after the Big Bang. These ripples could extend beyond what we can see with our telescopes, so we can only calculate their existence.
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During its many months orbiting Saturn, Cassini has gotten a few good looks at Hyperion, one of the planets many moons. This irregularly shaped moon is reasonably large (266 km or 165 miles across) and chaotically tumbles in its orbit around Saturn. Cassini took these images in October 2004 and February 2005 at relatively similar distances. It will get a much better view in September, 2005, when the spacecraft is scheduled to make a flyby at an altitude of only 990 km (615 miles).
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Researchers have discovered evidence of recent glacier movements and volcanic eruptions on Mars, overturning the long-held opinion that it's a cold, dead world. As recently as 350,000 years ago, glaciers moved from Mars' poles to its tropics, covering the planet in sheets of ice. And several of Mars' giant volcanoes were active as recently as 2 million years ago. The heat from these volcanoes could sustain microbial life in underground pools of liquid water.
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An instrument on board the Mars Exploration rover Opportunity is malfunctioning, so mission controllers have decided to turn it off until they can figure out what's causing the problem. The problem is with its miniature thermal emission spectrometer (Mini-TES), which Opportunity uses to sense the mineral composition of distant rocks. The problem could be with a broken switch that helps position the mirror that directs infrared light into the Mini-TES. Even if engineers can't figure out a solution, Opportunity can still return some science with the instrument partially functioning.
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Astronomers have known since 1998 that a mysterious force seems to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe. An international team of astronomers have observations from Hubble and a powerful computer simulation to find evidence of dark energy much closer to home. The team studied the motion of our local group of galaxies (40 galaxies within 5 million light years) and found that you could only explain their current positions if you include the influence of dark energy.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft has made a surprising discovery about Saturn's moon Enceladus: it has an atmosphere of water vapour. Cassini detected the atmosphere during both of its recent close flybys. Scientists are sure what's causing this cloud of water vapour, but it could be caused by volcanoes, geysers, or gasses escaping from the moon's interior. Enceladus' gravity is very small, so it wouldn't be able to hold onto an atmosphere for very long. This means there must be some continuous source replenishing it.
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A hardy robot from Carnegie Mellon has found life in Chile's Atacama desert; one of the driest and most lifeless places on Earth. Life is barely detectable over most parts of Atacama, but the rover (named Zo?) was able to detect lichens and bacterial colonies in two regions that it explored. The solar-powered rover provides a good example of the kind of technology that will probably used to search for life on Mars. Next year Zo? will travel autonomously for two months, traveling 50 km in the search for life.
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European astronomers have found a group of stars in the Omega Centauri globular cluster which seem to be some of the most rich in helium ever seen. These are bluer stars, and astronomers would expect that they contained lighter elements, but the team found exactly the opposite - they have more heavy elements than red stars. One theory to explain this is that previous generations of stars exploded as supernovae, and seeded the region with helium and heavier elements. These blue stars then formed from this material.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! While the Moon will figure prominently in this week's scheme, there will be many occultations to view as well as lunar features. We'll return to visit both the M50 and M44, as well as learn about double star - Algieba There are two minor meteor showers and planets to explore. So grab your binoculars and telescopes, because...
Here's what's up!
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NASA's Spirit rover has been fortunate enough this week to spot a tiny dust devil scurrying across the surface of Mars. The various orbiters have seen crisscrossing dust devil tracks, but this is the first time one has been captured on camera from the surface. It also appears that Spirit was recently dusted off by one of these mini-twisters, cleaning off accumulations of dust, and boosting its available power for operations. This also happened a few months ago to Spirit's twin, Opportunity.
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A powerful Atlas V rocket lifted off from Cape Canavaral on Friday, carrying its heaviest cargo to date: the 5,959 kg (13,138 pound) Inmarsat 4-F1 satellite. The rocket had three additional solid boosters to help it carry this weight into orbit. The launch was delayed one day because of technical problems, but the launch itself went smoothly in good weather. The satellite will be used by Inmarsat to provide voice and data communication services.
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Thanks to data collected by NASA's WMAP probe in 2001 and 2002, plus the hard work of astrophysicists, we now know that the Universe is 13.7 billion years of age - give or take a few hundred million years. And thanks to the way distant galaxy clusters interacted with the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) some 7 billion years ago, we may soon be able to peel away layers of time and better understand irregularities in the shape of the universe as it is today.
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Amateur photographer Bojan Stajcar took this picture of the lunar occulation of Jupiter on the 27th of February. This picture was taken 10 minutes after the Moon partially occulted Jupiter, at 11:04 pm local time, from Melbourne, Australia. The camera used was a mechanically modified Connectix Quickcam, with 320x240 pixel CCD sensor in the focus of the motorized ("Bartelized") homemade 10", f5.6 reflector. Note the difference in the surfaces brightness of the Moon and Jupiter. Despite the fact that the moon surface consists of very low reflective material (dominantly basalt), it is brighter, as Jupiter is 5 times further away from the Sun.
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Scientists are in agreement that a rock from space smashed into the ground in Arizona 50,000 years ago, carving out a pit 1,250 metres (4,100 feet) across. But they're now starting to disagree on the speed the asteroid was going when it hit. One mystery that has been puzzling scientists: where is all the impact-melted rock? If it was going as much as 20 km/s (44,000 mph) as originally believed, it should have fractured into pieces which would have rained down over a larger area. But a new simulation calculates that it was going only half that speed, and probably came down as a swarm of material, not a single rock.
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New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope are helping astronomers fine tune their models of star formation, including an estimate of just how massive a star can become. Hubble carefully observed the Arches cluster, a group of stars collectively weighing 10,000 solar masses. Standard theories predicted 20 to 30 stars in the cluster would have 150 solar masses, but none turned up; although, at least a dozen push 100 solar masses. What variables could limit the amount of mass a star can pack on?
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It appears that galaxies in the early Universe didn't evolve at similar speeds or in the same ways. Almost right from the beginning, the Universe was filled with galaxies large and small, dusty and clear, active with star formation and relatively sedate. Researchers from the US used Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) aboard NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to study galaxies 10-12 billion light-years away. Instead of finding a similar set of galaxies, they turned up tremendous varieties, as much as we see in the night sky today.
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Cassini has made a few passes of Titan now, and the European Space Agency's Huygens probe has landed on its surface, so Saturn's largest moon is starting to reveal its secrets. Scientists involved with the mission have recently published some of their findings in the Journal Nature. Some of their insights include the discovery of a long river, 1,500 km (930 miles) long and evidence that winds on Titan blow faster than the moon rotates. The climate seems to revolve around liquid methane, which can flow in rivers, fall as rain, and collect in vast lakes.
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NASA scientists have finally worked out why there's a safe zone in the Earth's radiation belts, thousands of km above the surface. It turns out that lightning in the lower atmosphere generates radio waves which interact with radiation around the Earth, removing some of its energy and changing the direction of charged particles. This safe zone could be used as a haven by satellites to reduce the damage they take while operating in these regions.
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Biologists - and all parents - have a pretty good idea that "life begets life". Beginning with the most primitive anaerobic bacteria and leading up to the most sophisticated and accomplished astronomer, it's pretty clear that offspring don't necessarily resemble their parent(s) in all particulars. Meanwhile exobiologists are unlikely to ever disprove the fact that life exists beyond the Blue Planet because disproving something is much harder than proving it. After all if intelligent life could happen here - it could happen elsewhere...
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Astronomers have used the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton telescope to watch X-rays coming from Jupiter. These X-rays are mostly reflected solar radiation, which is bounced back through Jupiter's atmosphere. Since Jupiter seems to brighten and dim during solar flares, solar astronomers can detect flares occurring on the far side of the Sun. Jupiter is a poor mirror for X-rays, though, typically only reflecting back less than 0.1% of the radiation that hits it.
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft took this photograph of Saturn's F ring that shows distinct twists and kinks. The perturbations are caused by the gravitation interaction of Saturn's F ring shepherd moon Prometheus as it orbits the Ringed Planet once every 14.7 hours - Prometheus just passed through the region in this photograph, so the eddies are fresh. This photograph was taken by Cassini on Jan. 19, 2005 at a distance of 1.9 million km (1.2 million miles).
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The quaint view that black holes gobble up matter quickly and efficiently is being replaced with observations and simulations that show a tremendous amount of violence and turbulence. Like too much water trying to get down a drain, matter backs up and creates an environment unique in the Universe. A new simulation from Johns Hopkins University shows how matter around a black hole can take on relativistic speeds, extreme densities, intense magnetic fields, all the while blasting out torrents of energy.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers. During the vernal equinox it is possible for most observers to see all 110 Messier Objects in a single night. Thanks to New Moon on March 10, the best night to do this will be on Thursday. For many of us, ?marathoning? during the week isn't so easy. Why not try your own style of marathoning as we take a week long look at the observing list and enjoy these splendid objects "one night at a time?" So get out your scopes and binoculars...
Because here's what's up.
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Scientists have begun firing a beam of neutrinos through the Earth to a target 735 km (456 miles) away. This experiment will help the team understand how neutrinos can pass through tremendous amounts of matter, but barely interact. And if they're lucky, they'll catch the particles as they morph into different varieties: electron, muon and tau. One detector, at Fermilab, near Chicago, will sample the beam as it leaves the Main Injector. Another detector is stationed deep underground at the Soudan Mine in Northern Minnesota. Only muon neutrinos will be generated, so if the other varieties show up, scientists will know it happened in between the detectors.
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It's called Dawn, and in a little more than a year, this spacecraft will blast off from Florida, bound for two separate asteroids: Vesta and Ceres. Visiting the two most massive asteroids in our Solar System will be an ambitious undertaking; maybe one of the most difficult and dangerous orbital missions attempted. Dawn will bring a suite of scientific instruments to these two asteroids and serve as a time machine to help scientists understand what our Solar System looked like 4.6 billion years ago.
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