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| STS-99: SpaceViews. HST: STScI, ESA and NASA Press Releases and pictures of the Eskimo nebula and Abell 2218. The astronauts talk: Space.com. |
Update # 169 of January 22nd, 2000, at 20:00 UTC
NASA grounds HETE satellite for more testing!There will be no launch of the High Energy Transient Explorer 2 gamma ray burst observatory on January 28th: NASA has decided to perform more ground tests with the satellite, in the wake of the two lost Mars probes. HETE 2 has already been detached from its Pegasus booster and will return to the MIT. Concerns about HETE 2 arose among NASA officials because the satellite had spent only a week in thermal vacuum testing. Additionally, one of the satellite's soft X-ray cameras and an electronics board were replaced and follow-up vibration testing was not performed; also of concern is the network of ground stations. The launch is now planned for about May 2000. |
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Now official: Russia saves Mir, diverting hardware built for the ISSNASA won't like it, but the Russian voters might: The government has decided on Jan. 20th to give the Mir space station a 2nd life. The cabinet has ruled that the Russian Space Agency can use booster rockets and cargo ships that had been intended for supply missions to the ISS. A cargo ship with supplies will be launched to Mir on Feb. 1, and a crew is set to blast off in April for a mission of 45 to 72 days, followed by another Progress freighter. The cost of this one manned mission plus the two supply flights is apparently coverd by the foreign private money that recently arrived - but what will happen then is still unclear.And that applies to the tasks of the new crew as well: If the promised private funds arrive in full, they should prepare Mir for future commercial use, if not, they must ready the station for a controlled crash later this year. Meanwhile the Russians emphasize that they still consider their role in the ISS as important and that the use of the hardware for continued Mir support will do "no damage to the new station," as Russian space agency chief Yuri Koptev puts it: "There is no alternative to the ISS for Russia." Western observers are not so sure that enough rockets and ships can be manufactured to support both programs, though. |
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India dreams of a mission to the MoonThe Indian space agency (ISRO) wants to shift its focus from mundane commercial activities towards exciting science projects - and a mission to the Moon is thought to be both feasible (with India's own PSLV rocket) and highly inspiring for the Indian public. "We cannot afford not to go to the moon," Indian scientists say, and ISRO's chair K. Kasturiangan thinks that the government will agree. Two mission concepts are being pondered, either a lunar glyby with a 275 kg spacecraft or a 140 kg lunar orbiter. Foreign experts consider the project feasible but warn that going to the Moon is expensive and that one could have a few Earth missions for the same price. (Science of Dec. 17, 1999, p. 2260) |
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Green light for neutrino beam to pass below the AlpsThe European lab for particle physics CERN has now approved a plan to send a beam of muon neutrinos from Geneva through the Alps to a detector in Italy's Gran Sasso labs. Two experiments there, OPERA and ICANOE, will be optimized to detect Tau neutrinos directly - which should come into existence through the famous neutrino oscillations while the muon neutrinos are travelling. Japan's SuperKamiokande experiment has all but proven that these oscillations are responsible for the solar neutrino deficit (see Update #82), but that detector could only notice that some atmospheric neutrinos were missing. The new experiment will be the first one to actually detect the new 'flavor' created in the oscillations - the first results should be available in 2005. (Nature of Dec. 23, 1999, p. 847) |
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Adaptive Optics breakthrough: Get rid of the seeing everywhere in the sky!For the first time the basic principle of atmospheric tomography has been proven in the real sky: By imaging three stars with high speed Italian and Spanish astronomers have been able to retrieve all the information about the atmospheric distortions of the wavefront necessary to control a system of fast-moving mirrors that would get rid of them. What's particularly exciting, however, is the fact that the method will work with stars so faint that it can be used everywhere in sky - no need for (complicated) laser guide stars. And it can be scaled to telescopes of all sizes, including those with mirrors 100 meters in diameters that astronomers already dream about. (Ragazzoni & al., Nature of Jan. 6, 2000, p. 54-6) |
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New interstellar molecules found by ISOThe clouds of gas and dust grains in interstellar space contain complex organic molecules made of hundreds of chained carbon atoms: The ISO IR satellite has detected these molecules in many different environments - and Spanish astronomers have now found two molecules never seen before in space that could be the precursors for the formation of the more complex organic compounds. The new molecules, detected in two very old stars, are diacetylene and triacetylene (C4H2 and C6H2): They are present in the planets of the Solar System but had not been found before in interstellar space. The di- and tri-acetylene as well as other molecules in the IR spectra that haven't been identified yet might very well be the 'small bricks' that will combine to make the complex molecules like PAHs. |
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VLBI shoots 'movie' of expanding supernova shellIt's probably the best-observed supernova besides SN 1987A: Supernova 1993J in the nearby galaxy M 81 (distance 3.6 Mpc) has been monitored ever since its explosion was first noted on March 28, 1993, and there are now 20 consecutive radio images with milli arc second resolution in hand, covering 5 years. A lot has happened: First almost a point source, the rapidly expanding supernova soon became recognizable as a nice, spherical shell, though with an uneven and continuously changing brightness pattern.This seems to be related to local condensations in the wind of the supernova's progenitor star, possibly caused by its binary nature. The explosion's shock front overruns this stellar wind with a speed up to 2000 times larger: It acts as a time machine by recording - in just a few years and in reverse - the wind history of the star before it died. Meanwhile the expansion speed of the supernova has been slowed down to half its original value, allowing calculations of the shell's mass. (Bartel & al., Science of Jan. 7, 2000, p. 112-116) |
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There will be no Mars launch in 2001 The obvious seems to have happened: According to AW&ST NASA has delayed launching the Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander in the wake of the MPL loss. There is no decision on "when or if" the 2001 Lander will be launched, while the 2001 Orbiter launch should proceed as planned on March 30, 2001: Aviation Now.Mars failure review continues - the Mars Program Independent Assessment Team (MPIAT) continued its review of NASA's Mars missions with a visit to Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, CO, this week: Release, SpaceViews. Lunar eclipse bright as expectedDuring totality on Jan. 20/21 the totally eclipsed Moon stayed pretty bright (about L=3 on the Danjon Scale, according to most observers) - as had been expected because there is less volcanic stuff in the Earth's atmosphere than in years: pictures by M. Babcock, DLR and B. Yen, special pages from ASTRONET and Space.com and stories from Space.com, CNN, BBC ( observing reports and pictures), ABC, EZ, SPIEGEL.Advance coverage from GSFC, S&T (article & Press Release), Astronomy, ESA Sci. News, Spacescience.com, BBC, ABC, MSNBC, EZ, Fla. Today, CNN, AstroPages and SPIEGEL. A rare picture: an Atlas rocket in front of the Moon, just hours before the eclipse, just launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a military communications satellite: Fla. Today. First 2 parts of Stardust maneuver successfulThe first 2 parts of the 3 part Deep Space Maneuver-1 (DSM-1), to target the STARDUST spacecraft for an Earth gravity assist next year, have been successfully completed: Status, SpaceViews.More details about the rescue of Deep Space 1 are contained in the Jan. 21 status report. Why is there crystalline ice on Charon?Pluto's moon should be covered only with amorphous ice and never been warm enough for it to crystallize. The possible presence of ammonia (indicated in the same Keck spectra that for the first time show really clear features) is also raising questions: Brown & Calvin, Science of Jan. 7, 2000, p. 107-109, InSCIght, Space.com.Giant star clusters in other galaxies: globulars being born?For the first time the early formation of a super star cluster on its way to becoming a globular cluster has been seen in NGC 5253, and "what may be the youngest massive star clusters ever observed" was spotted in the galaxy Henize 2-10: UCLA (mirror) and U. of Wisc. press releases and coverage by ABC, EZ, Space.com. |
Space tracking pioneer Geoff Perry diesGeoff Perry MBE, founder of the influential Kettering satellite tracking group, and co-discoverer of the top secret Soviet Plesetsk launch site in 1966 has died of a heart attack: BBC, Wired and Aviation Now obits, a picture and a history of the Kettering group.Large climate pattern in the Pacific?A giant horseshoe pattern of higher than normal sea-surface heights developing over the last year is beginning to dominate the entire western Pacific and Asiatic oceans, new imagery from the TOPEX/Poseidon satellite shows - this multiple-year trend may be part of a decade-long pattern known as the 'Pacific decadal oscillation or PDO: JPL Press Release.Lagrangian points as spacecraft parking lotsThose areas in the solar system where the gravitational forces of two celestial bodies, like the Earth and sun, are in perfect balance, are getting increased attention by astronomers and scientists who plot new routes for humans to reach the moon, Mars, and asteroids: Space.com.Gliding into orbit - will space probes one day be able to fly into and out of a planet's atmosphere just like an aircraft-without burning up? Spacecraft could dip into a planet's atmosphere, harness aerodynamic forces to fly like an aeroplane, and then zip back into space, having steered into a new orbital trajectory: New Scientist. Spanish "iceballs" are rare but not unique atmospheric phenomenonThe 40 iceballs that fell in Spain these days are "an infrequent natural phenomenon", said Cesar Nombrela, president of CSIC: This strange phenomenon occurs when a mass of water condenses in high layers of our atmosphere through sudden temperature drops. There are some docummented cases of that phenomenon, with ice blocks formed up to 200 kg in mass. The last aerolites from Spain (there are ~40 collected) are frauds, however; there are even some people that sell "aerolites" at very high prices. (N. Chazarra on meteorobs on Jan. 21 and wire reports)
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Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer
