Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer, Skyweek - older "Mirrors" in the Archive - and find out what the future might bring!

The zodiacal dust bands in our solar system, discovered 16 years ago in Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) observations, formed and have been replenished for four billion years by collisions of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. The belt of asteroids would have been another planet in our solar system, were it not for Jupiter's tremendous gravitational forces. During its flight in 1983 IRAS had also found the huge IR emission from HD 98800. However, only very recently, with NICMOS on the HST and ground based observations, could astronomers fit the data into a model that is remarkably similar in temperature, size, structure and mass to our zodiacal dust bands. The total mass of material in the belt is between one-half and one Earth mass.

If the supernova itself accelerated the freshly-made Ni-59 to cosmic ray energies, ACE would have seen more Ni-59 in its cosmic ray collection, and less Co-59. One can rule out the possibility of Ni-59 decaying while en-route to Earth, because in order to decay, the Ni-59 nucleus has to absorb one of its electrons. Once an atom of Ni-59 is accelerated to cosmic ray energies and loses its electrons, it is relatively stable and invulnerable to decay, as long as it keeps moving. Thus the results rule out the possibility of the cosmic ray seed particles being fresh supernova ejecta. Instead, the results support theories for the origin of cosmic rays to be old stellar or interstellar material.

• "Not much more than a decade from now - thanks to SIM and TPF - we will have searched for Earth-like planets around thousands of nearby stars. We will use low-resolution spectroscopy to search the most promising planets. Perhaps we will find water, ozone, and carbon dioxide in the thick atmosphere of a warm planet. These results will guide a possible subsequent mission, called Life Finder. This will be a larger interferometer and will obtain higher-resolution spectra that could identify gases, such as methane, that are out of equilibrium with their environment."
• "In a decade or two, if we find warm, potentially habitable planets with our first spectroscopic missions, all of humanity will want to know much more about them. Are there continents? Oceans? Mountain ranges? Forests and fields? Lakes and seas? Are there seasons? What is the climate like? Are these worlds living? What kinds of life might exist there and how complex is it? If the life is complex, what are the signs of its complexity? To answer these questions, we must examine these worlds closely and survey their surfaces. Therefore, the next step after spectroscopy will be imaging. We do not know now what those future imaging missions will be, and we face substantial technological problems. But we must vigorously pursue the breakthrough technologies to give you the most possible options."
• "Perhaps we will choose to image those new worlds with telescopes in space starting at diameters of 50 or 100 m - and growing far larger - to detect faint light from target worlds. The telescopes might be strung out in interferometers, with elements separated not by tens of meters but by hundreds or thousands of kilometers, to separate the faint light of the planets from the blinding glare of the stars and to achieve the angular resolution that our science goals require. Or we may choose to use the Sun's gravity to precisely image the surface details of another world, by placing our future spacecraft at about 550 AU in the opposite direction. This will require new generations of propulsion, which might also give us the ability one day to send our robots directly to another world."
• "Just imagine our first interstellar probe that may give us new clues to new life forms on planets in other solar systems. The Coke can-sized spacecraft will reach and land on a passing asteroid two years after it is launched from Earth. Aboard the asteroid, the spacecraft will use its DNA-based biomimetic system as a blueprint to evolve, adapt and grow into a more complex exploring and thinking system. It will ride the asteroid like a parasite until it transforms itself into its next evolvable state - an intelligent interstellar probe.
• "It will use the asteroid's native resources to accomplish the first phase of its mission. This may mean using the asteroid's iron, carbon and other materials to build its structure, nervous system, and communications. This reconfigurable hybrid system can adapt form and function to deal with changes and unanticipated problems. Eventually it will leave its host carrier and travel at a good fraction of the speed of light out to the stars and other solar systems."