And new: An experimental German companion to the CM.
Don't forget the Leonids (and LINEARids, perhaps)
on Nov. 17/18 and Nov. 11, resp.: Details in Updates # 153 and 155. Even more links:
AKM Pages, ESA Pages, NASA Science News (lunar effects), Space Daily, Space.com.
Thursday's Classroom (parts 1 and 2), NASA Science News (LINEARids speculations).
Update # 156 of November 6th, 1999, at 18:15 UTC
Gamma burst specialist van Paradijs dead at 53Dr. Johannes van Paradijs, 53, from The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) died on Nov. 2nd at a hospital in Amsterdam after an extended illness. One of the world's leading astrophysicists, van Paradijs was also a professor of astronomy at The University of Amsterdam. He split his time between the Netherlands and Huntsville, where he worked with UAH graduate students and collaborated with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory team in the Space Sciences Lab at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Paradijs published more than 300 scientific papers, including a "Perspective" article in October in the journal Science on possible links between gamma ray bursts and super novas. |
Van Paradijs' published papers (more than 600 entries!) A press release on his GRB work (from 1997) and the Rossi Prize for van Paradijs. Obituraries from ASTRONET and Space.com. |
A comeback for the double star planet?Is there a Jupiter-sized planet in orbit around a distant double star, which would be a unique configuration (as the planet would orbit both suns and not just one of them)? Or can the data - from a microlensing survey - bet fitted equally well or even better by just a rotating double star with out a planet, as proposed by Albrow at al. and discussed in Update # 154 (story 4)? The paper announcing the possible discovery has now appeared in Nature (Nov. 4 issue), and the lead author has defended the interpretation to the Cosmic Mirror.The "data from Wise Observatory indicates a brightening on day 654 when the Albrow et al fit indicates that the brightness is sharply decreasing," states David Bennett: "It is difficult to see how the Albrow et al fit could be modified to correct [the] problem, and I'm wondering if some of the 'outlier' data points ignored by Albrow et al also indicate features that are incompatible with their model." More observational tests to discern between the two interpretations are now planned. |
Details and pictures from the Bennett & al. work. An NSF Press Release ( EurekAlert version). A recent review of planet hunting by microlensing. A story on the Albrow & al. interpretation from InSCIght (of Oct. 29th). New coverage of the possible planet from SpaceViews, Space.com, ABC = CSM, Space Daily, ASTRONET. |
MGS gives weather forecast for MPLWhen the Mars Polar Lander arrives at Mars on December 3, 1999, it will land on bare ground, free of the -128 degrees C dry ice that completely covered this region during the winter: That's what infrared data from the TES instrument on the Mars Global Surveyor, obtained one Martian year earlier, promise. Right now thee is still some ice present, but it should be gone by Nov. 7th. The 1998 data also showed noontime temperatures at the landing site in a range of -19 to -11 degrees C; similar temperatures are forecast for December 3rd. Overall, conditions at the south polar region now are consistent with expectations. |
The TES data as color graphics. MarsPolarLander.com. Coverage by SpaceViews. |
"Spaceliner 100": NASA to look way beyond the ShuttleDriving down the costs of getting to orbit by a factor of 100: That is the goal of the $80 million "Spaceliner 100" technology program that the U.S. Congress has added to NASA's FY2000 budget in October. "Spaceliner 100 is not a program," says Garry Lyles, manager of the Advanced Space Transportation Program at the MSFC: "it's a blueprint for directing technology investments" - and any spacecraft that would incorporate the technologies developped under this program will probably not fly before 2025.Even the next generation of launchers beyond the space shuttle is anything but defined, with the precursor programs like the X-33 behind schedule and any decision off for several years, but NASA's stated goal is that a new reusable launch vehicle based on these experiments will make space transportation 10 times cheaper than today: The new RLV should carry one kilogram to orbit for $2000. The RLV of the third generation, however, should accomplish the same for $200 - and be as reliable as an aircraft. No one knows today what such a spacecraft would look like... (Space News of Nov. 8, 1999) |
A NASA document on the Spaceliner from September. But the Space Access Society does not like it: Updates # 88 and 90. Related developments: No decision on Shuttle successor before 2005 - NASA is way behind with its search for a replacement: SpaceViews. X-33 hydrogen tank damaged in tests - the problem was noticed Nov. 3rd by technicians monitoring the tank by video camera: Press Release, VentureStar,com, coverage by SpaceViews. Surreal show about the VentureStar puzzles conference audience: NASA Watch. |
Major milestone for SOFIA's mirrorNASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) project team has achieved a major milestone toward completing the world's largest airborne observatory: French engineers reconfigured the 2.7-meter primary mirror of the telescope to be light enough to meet the stringent weight requirements of an airborne telescope, yet strong enough to withstand its open-cavity environment. It was the largest telescope mirror ever to be lightweighted using a mechanical cutting process which required removing over 3600 kg from the back of the SOFIA primary mirror. During the nearly 18-month process, the mirror's weight was reduced by over 80% from 4500 kg to 880 kg. The lightweighting procedure, that used a huge, high-precision milling machine, resulted in a strong, lighter-weight mirror with a honeycomb back. |
Press Release. SOFIA Homepage. SOFIA mirror image gallery. |
More Io close-ups released!New high-resolution images of a volcanic crater on Jupiter's moon Io from the October Galileo encounter suggest it's remarkably similar to craters of the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, only several times larger - and many more pictures will be shown on Nov. 19th: Prometheus close-up, IR data, NASA Science News, Astr. Now, CNN, ABCNEWS, Space.com.Galileo prepares for next (last?) Io flyby with a trajectory correction: Space.com. Remnants of galaxy eaten by the Milky Way discoveredAbout ten per cent of the metal-poor stars in the halo of the Milky Way, outside the radius of the Sun's orbit, come from a single coherent structure that was disrupted during or soon after the Galaxy's formation - probably a dwarf spheroidal galaxy. And the globular cluster Omega Centauri has two stellar populations and might have come from beyond the Milky Way, too: Paper by Helmi & al. on the halo stars, a Nature Science Update, an ESA Press Release and coverage by ExploreZone, Space.com.
Ancestors of today's galaxies revealedThe ISO satellite has unveiled more than a thousand very active young galaxies in which non-stop star-formation machines are at work - and which manifest themselves as fluctuations in the Far-IR background: ESA Science News, a paper by Elbaz and the FIR Background survey homepage.Distance of the LMC remains mysteriousThirty-eight recent (1998-1999) measurements of the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud are inconsistent with one another at the 3-sigma level - the lack of overlap between the results of many of the techniques, simply employing the authors' quoted uncertainties, is a clear indication that unrecognized uncertainties, both random and systematic, plague many of the published results, on which much of the Universe's distance ladder is based: Preprint by Brad Gibson.HST mission delayed a few daysAs NASA is forced to change an engine on Discovery, yet another delay in the launch of the high-profile HST mission is necessary - the launch was scheduled December 2nd but now will be delayed by at least 3 or 4 days to allow technicians to install a new right main engine: CNN, ABC, Space.com, SpaceViews.A nice HST picture of colliding galaxies in Canis Major: STScI Press Release, Space.com, ExploreZone, CNN, BBC, CSM stories. |
Proton suffered engine explosionThe accident that took down the Proton on Oct. 27 was an almost exact copy of the July 5 crash: One of the 4 engines of the 2nd stage exploded. Meanwhile observers wonder why only one out of 17 commercial Proton launches since 1996 has failed, but 4 out of 14 government payloads were lost... (Space News of Nov. 8, 1999) Crash sours Russian-Kazakh ties: Space.com.How to extend the Internet to other planetsNASA and network gurus are working together to extend the Internet to other worlds in the next few years: "InterPlaNet" homepage, Space Communications Protocol Standards project, MSNBC story.UN wants to prevent space arms raceThe United States abstained from a vote on Nov. 1 on a United Nations resolution that aims to prevent "an arms race in outer space." The resolution, one of several considered by the U.N. General Assembly on disarmament issues, passed by a margin of 138 to 0: UN Press Release, SpaceViews story. Are weapons in space unavoidable? U.S. News & World Report.Is the Torino scale useless?When the Torino Impact Hazard Scale was unveiled (see Update # 141 story 4), it was highly touted as a comprehensive measure of the risk of an asteroid colliding with Earth. Three months later, the scale has seen little use: Space.com = ExploreZone.Ham operators to help NASA with satellite experimentSome veteran space instruments are ready for a final trip into space for the Plasma Experiment Satellite Test to help demonstrate new measuring techniques for an advanced space propulsion concept. If all goes well, the project will let amateur radio operators contribute to the program by recording the data: NASA Science News, Space.com.
More IKONOS images postedshowing cities around the world at a level of detail previously unavailable to commercial imaging satellites: Press Release, Space.com, Space Daily.30 years ago: Germany's first satelliteOn Nov. 8, 1969, the 82 kg AZUR satellite was launched by a Scout at Vandenberg, to explore the Earth's radiation belts: MPAe-Pressemitteilung.
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All other historical issues can be found in the Archive.
The U.S. site of this Cosmic Mirror has been visited
since it was issued (the German site has no counter).
Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer
(send me a mail to [email protected]!), Skyweek
