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 January 22nd, at 18:15 UTC

Russia decides: 3 more years for Mir! In a stunning - though not entirely unexpected - move the Russian government has just decreed that the Mir space station will stay in orbit until 2002 and will not ditch into the Pacific this summer. Mysterious funding sources outside the government would pay for the continued operations, the terse statement from Moscow said. There had been announcements about a possible "buyer" of Mir for months (see Update # 115, last item), but no company was ever identified.

Details from the BBC

A delay of at least another 5 weeks hits Chandra More bad news for the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the astronomy satellite formerly known as AXAF: NASA had to announce on Jan. 20 that it will delay this month's planned shipment of the satellite from prime contractor TRW Space and Electronics Group, Redondo Beach, CA, to the Kennedy Space Center. The postponement will allow TRW to evaluate and correct a potential problem with several printed circuit boards in the observatory's command and data management system. The launch date now slips to the same May 13th that has been reserved for the next shuttle launch to the ISS - it's unclear which mission will have priority. TRW had notified NASA of the potential problem last week after another spacecraft being built by the company experienced a failure during testing that was attributed to similar printed circuit boards. The failed boards and those in Chandra were all made by BF Goodrich Aerospace, Davis Systems Div., Albuquerque, NM, in the same time frame in 1996. The problem has been traced to poor conductivity between different layers of the boards. The boards are used in Chandra's main command and telemetry unit and four remote units which provide command and data communications links between the observatory's computer and subsystems. NASA has directed TRW to remove and replace the boards in the main unit, and to conduct further tests and evaluation to determine if it is also necessary to replace the boards in the remote units. The repair, if limited to boards in the main command and telemetry unit, is expected to delay shipment to Kennedy by approximately one week. This will result in approximately a five-week slip in the observatory's launch readiness date, which will allow for integration and testing of the units at Kennedy. If boards in the remote units must also be replaced, a more extensive slip is anticipated. (Based on NASA Note to Editors # 4 of Jan. 20)

NASA's Note to Editors CXO Center Harvard CXO Mission Background Titan Explosion Explained: The accident last August has been traced to defective cable isolations that caused a series of shorts. This interrupted the power supply briefly but long enough to confuse the computer - the rocket veered off course and selfdestructed. Here is the executive summary of the accident report, and here is how the cause was found: The guilty hardware was never recovered, but telemetry plus simulations leave only one explanation. Advanced Tether Experiment fails: A space tether to be deployed from the STEX satellite was inadvertently jettisoned Jan. 16th by a misfiring of an automatic protection system. Check the ATEx Homepage where pictures taken during the ill-fated deployment should appear. Lunar Prospector orbit lowering delayed: An orbit change that was to mark the beginning of Prospector's extended mission has been delayed two weeks to permit the orbit to enter a more desirable configuration. A SpaceViews story.

Will Pluto cease being a planet? While the question is not new, it's suddenly got a new level of urgency: Should the "9th Planet" be listed as a minor planet instead? With more and more objects being found in similar orbits (there are now almost 90 Kuiper Belt Objects known), the status of Pluto as a regular planet is challenged. And now the permanent numbering of asteroids with well-known orbits is approaching 10 000: Wouldn't it be nice to give that number to 'asteroid Pluto'? An alternative would be to start a new numbering system for the Kuiper Belt Objects and make Pkuto "object K-1". But it's not that simple: There are deep discussions going on in the respective commissions of the International Astronomical Union on what is a planet in the first place (or whether we even need a definition), while emotions sometimes run high. As the IAU reports on its official "Status of Pluto" website, "one can not predict when consensus will be reached," if ever. "Any decision, however, will not alter either the true nature of Pluto or the historical record of its having been generally considered a planet; a decision will be made if it provides useful distinctions to aid future work in astronomy. "

The Status of Pluto - Official IAU Site What the outer solar system looks like Recent news Coverage of the 'Pluto Affair' from ABQ Journal, ABCNEWS, BBC and CNN.

Final batch of press releases from AAS 193 The large scale structure of the Universe is becoming clearer after the discovery of two relatively rare types of galaxy superclusters in a single colossal complex, while another supercluster is much larger than thought, the NEP supercluster. The Universe does expand and all other explanations for the redshifts of galaxies are wrong. That clear results is a nice spin-off from the supernova observations at great distances that are used to get the cosmological parameters (see Update # 115). A nuclear ring in the galaxy ESO 565-11 has been imaged by Hubble: active formation of massive young stars. New radio images of the star TX Cam show strange atmospheric behavior, while the nebula around UW Cen shows very fast changes that can only be explained by illumination effects.

Pretty pictures with optical interferometry have been obtained at a Keck telescope with a mask with holes in front of it: the pictures and a press release. A new class of stars in globular clusters has been discovered. Detailled studies of all stars close to the Sun are underway with the NSTARS project. The 'missing pulsars' in supernova remnants could actually be magnetars, X-ray observations indicate. And there is progress in explaining how pulsars emit radio waves (and another page on that). Cold hydrogen clouds in the Milky Way have been imaged against an emitting background with unprecedented dynamic range. And finally ... a "Sun Dagger" on Texas rocks, the project Star Dial and "Encounter 2001" which will broadcast a message to aliens in March.

In a Nutshell: More pictures of Eros and a light curve have appeared in the NEAR Image Archive. A minor engine burn was successful on Jan. 20. / A new low temperature record has been set in the U.K.. / Even starlight (or light pollution reflected off clouds) is sufficient to cause germination of seeds under certain circumstances. / The NRC warns NASA to be careful when upgrading the shuttle. / And European students are invited to propose experiments for the ISS.

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