The next MEPCO is coming ... to Bulgaria, in early August, 1999!
For details on this astronomical conference just before the total solar eclipse click here!

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New: every page on two servers, in Europe and the U.S.!

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Breaking News as of December 22nd, 1998, at 20:45 UTC!

Ever-expanding Universe "Breakthrough of the Year" Few doubters remain as data from supernovae, cosmic background radiation converge The astonishing insight that the future of the Universe is most likely eternal expansion (discussed in Update # 68 in January in some detail) has been named the "Breakthrough of the Year" by the U.S. magazine Science: The results have become clearer throughout the year, and there is now little doubt that a) the mass density of the Universe is much too low to ever stop its expansion, and b) that the Cosmological Contant is not zero but positive. These results come from two large and deliberately independent international research groups that use large telescopes on several continents as well as Hubble. The teams regularly discover extremely distant supernovae of the type Ia - one just found a new record-holder with a redshift of 1.20! Since Ia SNe are good 'standard candles' (once certain corrections are applied), their apparent brightnesses readily yield their relative distances. And plotting these distances versus the redshift places the individual supernovae onto characteristic curves - curves that make pretty strong statements on cosmology. The latest analysis by one of the teams, based on 42 well-studied supernovae, has just come to the conclusion that "the cosmological constant is non-zero and positive, with a confidence P(Omega>0)=99%." The analysis still allows for a rather broad range of values for the matter density of the Universe (expressed as Omega-M = the actual density divided by the critical one that would eventually hold the cosmic expansion) and the equivalent value for the cosmological constant (Omega-Lambda). Between both, however, an ever clearer relationship emerges: 0.8 x Omega-M ~ 0.6 x Omega-Lambda. If the Universe is flat (Omega-M + Omega-Lambda = 1), as most cosmologists like it best, the results would mean that Omega-M is about 0.3, i.e. the density of the Universe is only 1/3 of the critical value. And at the same time Omega-Lambda makes up for the other 2/3. "This is the most unambiguous result of the current data set," says the study, but "even if the Universe is not flat," the cosmological constant remains "a significant constituent of the energy density of the Universe." A low-density Universe without a cosmological constant, still a possibility in January, is now ruled out as well! (Perlmutter & al., Preprint -> Ap.J.) But what are the values of Omega-M and Omega-Lambda? There is hope now to get the pair of numbers directly, by combining the supernova studies with data from the Cosmic Microwave background: Its irregularities on different size scales encode the crucial numbers as well, but in a different manner. So if one get's a good power spectrum of the CMB and combines the results with the supernova data, out jump Omega-M and Omega-Lambda. The measurements aren't very good yet but get better all the time. If one uses the best available measurements from space (COBE), balloons and the ground, Omega-m is 0.25 (with error bars of +0.18 and -0.12). And Omega-Lambda is + 0.63 (+0.17/-0.23): "The results therefore strongly favour a nearly spatially flat Universe with a non-zero cosmological constant." (Efstathiou & al., Preprint -> MNRAS)	The original papers with the latest numbers: the preprints from Perlmutter & al. and Efstathiou & al.. Reviews of Cosmology in 1998 by Turner (paper 1 and paper 2). Press Releases celebrating the "Breakthrough" award, from Science, Perlmutter's group, NOAO, ESO, RAS and UWA. News Coverage by ABC and BBC. Homepages of the groups: Perlmutter & al., Schmidt & al.. Recent Developments: The z=1.2 supernova - IAUC with the discovery of SN 1998 eq, a press release and a BBC story. A lone dissenting voice (Omega-M=1, from CMB data from the South Pole): press release, homepage of the instrument (Viper), the South Pole Observatory. Even these data could be reconciled with the 'favorite' world model outlined here, however, the lead scientist told the Post-Gazette of Dec. 18, however! The best value for the Hubble Constant: 72 - read the pretty convincing preprint from Madore & al.! History: What the view was in January.
Mars Express project in grave danger As usual the European Space Agency has not disclosed any details about its Council meeting earlier this week - but a source in the U.S. is reporting that the attempt to have all ESA members agree on restoring decent funding for the science program has failed. As the Mars Society reports in its electronic newsletter, 3 out of the 14 governments have refused to end the 'freeze' of ESA's science budget that has led to a 2-3 % decline in actual buying power each year since 1995 because of inflation. This fatal decision - by Germany, France and Spain - came about despite the clear warnings that a further degradation of ESA's science budget would most certainly kill the Mars Express project (see Update # 113, final story), because no other mission should be jeopardized for it. The lack of vision by the ESA Council is all the more bizarre because NASA had already agreed to invest several millions of dollars from its Discovery budget into one of Mars Express' planned instruments. The Mars Society is now calling on all Europeans to write to ESA in protest: "Europe once led the world in science and exploration. It is a disgrace that it has failed to participate in any significant way in humanity's current great adventure of reconnaissance of the solar system. It is a disgrace that the lack of vision of their governments is telling so many young Europeans; 'if you want to explore space, move to another continent.' It is incredible, that for the sake of 'saving' a few million dollars in science budget inflation adjustment funds, that European leaders should be willing to let their infant planetary exploration program collapse again." (Mars Society Special Bulletin # 12 of Dec. 16, 1998)	"Save Mars Express - Europeans Need to Speak Up!" (posted by the Mars Society). Nothing about the bad news could be found even three days later on the websites of ESA HQ or ESA's science news page ... So Mars will - unless the decision is overturned - remain NASA's planet: Here are pictures of the launch of the Mars Climate Orbiter, and even more pictures. And talking of images, here are the "Top Ten" of the Mars Global Surveyor. On Dec. 20 the maneuvers for inserting NEAR into Eros' orbit by Jan. 10 will begin: a press release, a background story and a news story.
Commercial future for Mir station found? Russian space officials apparently have signed preliminary documents with an unnamed private company that would lead to a full commercialization of the Mir space station, Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. If the deal works out, possibly by late December, Russia would keep Mir in orbit until 2000 to 2002. Other companies seem to be willing to become part of the first-ever commercial manned space station - but Western experts remain deeply skeptical about these developments. The reason why the West has insisted on an early de-orbit of Mir in mid-1999 is the low production rate of Soyuz and Progress supply ships for the station by the Russian space industry. And even if the commercial sponsors come up with the money to operate Mir (which is said to cost 240 Mio, $$ per year), it is far from clear that the Russian factories would be able to deliver enough supply ships for Mir and the ISS - which, according to Russian space officials, clearly is the priority. (AW&ST Dec. 14, 1998, p. 25)	Meanwhile Endeavour is back (it landed on the 15th) while the embryonic ISS is flying on its own after undocking on Dec. 13. Before that the 3rd EVA had wrapped up the work of which some ESC pictures can be seen here. And if you want to see the ISS yourself, predictions are offered by NASA itself as well as from the famous GSOC SatVis service!

In a Nutshell The Lunar Prospector starts lowering its orbit today, from 100 to 40 and then even fewer km! Details can be found in a press release. / Here is what the Geminids of 1998 delivered, plus a new Leonids expedition report from Korea. (The one from Mongolia is still there, of course.) Hot pictures of Leonid meteor trains can be found here. / After Endeavour had deployed the ISS, two small satellites were released: Argentina's SAC-A (which according to Launchspace is apparently having problems; here is the Argentine HP) and Mightysat.

Have you read the the previous issue?!
All other historical issues can be found in the Archive.

This Cosmic Mirror has been visited times since it was issued.

Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer
(send me a mail to [email protected]!), Skyweek