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By Daniel Fischer Every page present in Europe & the U.S.!
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The latest issue!
| A German companion! (SuW version) Current mission news: MGS (latest pictures!) + Cassini + Galileo + NEAR |
SOHO analyzes 'kamikaze comet' with two instruments - comet C/2001 C2 was observed both by LASCO and UVCS: ESA Science News, SPIEGEL. Comet C/1999 T1 in action: Hohmann-Stw. More speculation about C/2000 WM1, the possible next x-mas comet: SC. Venus now at its best in the evening sky: Science@NASA, CNN. One complete lunar cycle in a time-lapse movie: APOD. NASA strikes back at idiotic TV Moon hoax: Science@NASA.
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NEAR's mission comes to an end; excellent GRS data from surfaceDuring the night from Feb. 28 to March 1, NASA's Deep Space Network antennas pulled down their last Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission data (Earth 'hung up' precisely at midnight UTC), bringing to a close the first mission to extensively study an asteroid. During the final 16 days the spacecraft had performed the first gamma-ray experiment that has ever been done on the surface of a body other than Earth: The gamma-ray spectrometer team was able to retrieve data for of seven days in total after the spacecraft landed. "Right now we know we have good data with strong signatures," says team leader Jacob Trombka: "But it will take months to scrutinize what we've collected. What we're looking for is information that will help us more precisely classify Eros and determine the relationship between the asteroid and meteorites that have fallen to Earth."To do this the GRS relies partly on cosmic rays: When they hit Eros, they make the asteroid "glow" with gamma-rays. "Cosmic rays shatter atomic nuclei in the asteroid's soil," explains Trombka: Neutrons that fly away from the cosmic ray impact sites hit other atoms in turn. "These secondary neutrons can excite atomic nuclei (by inelastic scattering) without breaking them apart." Such excited atoms emit gamma-rays that the GRS can decipher to reveal which elements are present. NEAR Shoemaker now rests silently just to the south of the saddle-shaped feature Himeros as the asteroid twists more and more away from the sun with each rotation, moving the southern hemisphere into its winter season and temperatures as low as minus 150 degrees Celsius.
The first of three prime data sets have been received by now and "the data is outstanding." The second and third data sets will be transmitted to Earth on Feb. 26 and Feb. 28. While it'll take months to interpret that data, it won't take nearly as long for mission scientists to get a clearer picture of the asteroid's magnetic properties - or lack thereof: NEAR's magnetometer found no evidence of magnetism at its landing site. Having returned data from the surface, the instrument's work is done and it has been turned off. The landing site shows no evidence for an intrinsic magnetic field, and since the sensor is only two meters above the surface this is a pretty definitive measurement.
The mission operations team has decided against another engine firing that could have lifted the space probe off the asteroid's surface: There had been initial concerns that it might be necessary to adjust the spacecraft's orientation in order to receive telemetry from the ground. However, NEAR Shoemaker landed with such a favorable orientation that there is no problem with receiving information - it is not necessary to move the spacecraft from its resting place on the surface of Eros. The touchdown speed of between 1.5 and 1.8 m/s may have been one of the slowest planetary landings in history. Meanwhile there is a better picture of what happened in the moments after the landing: What originally was thought to be a bounce may have been little more than short hop or "jiggle" on the surface. The thrusters were still firing when the craft hit the surface, but cut off on impact and NEAR came down about 200 m from the projected landing site. NEAR Shoemaker snapped 69 detailed pictures during the final 5 km of its descent, the highest resolution images ever obtained of an asteroid. The camera delivered clear pictures from as close as 120 m, showing features as small as 1 centimeter across. They also included several things that piqued the curiosity of NEAR scientists, such as fractured boulders, a football-field sized crater filled with dust and a mysterious area where the surface appears to have collapsed.
NEAR Shoemaker touched town on Eros on Feb. 12 at 20:02:10 UTC, cruising to the asteroid's surface at less than 7 km/h. Cheers and congratulations filled the Mission Operations Center at APL, which built the spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA, when NEAR Mission Director Robert Farquhar announced: "I'm happy to say the spacecraft is safely on the surface of Eros." The last image snapped by NEAR Shoemaker was only 120 meters from the asteroid's surface and covered a 6-meter area. NEAR Shoemaker continued to send a signal to Earth, assuring the team that it had landed gently. The signal was identified by radar science data, and about an hour later was locked onto by NASA's Deep Space Network antennas, which continue to monitor the spacecraft. |
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Privately financed solar sail to fly this fall!The idea is centuries old, the initiative came from the Planetary Society, Russian companies will build it, the Russian navy will launch it with converted ICBM and a media company - founded by Carl Sagan's widow and a wealthy UFO fan - will pay the bill: This fall, perhaps as early as October, a Volna rocket will carry a 40-kg satellite into a low Earth orbit where it is to unfold the world's first solar sail in space, in an effort to demonstrate the principle of space propulsion with solar radiation pressure. And as early as April a prototype will be launched by the same kind of rocket on a suborbital flight, to test the deployment and unfolding of the sail.Once in orbit, the solar sail spacecraft will be as bright as the full moon (although only a point in the sky) and will be visible from places on Earth with the naked eye - one can only hope that the Planetary Society makes sure that it's gone soon, or it will make astronomers really mad. Images of the sail in flight will be sent to Earth from two different cameras on-board the spacecraft. The mission represents the first private mission of space exploration technology and the first mission by a private space interest organization: It will - by a unique, privately funded Russian-American space venture - explore and develop technology that could open the door to future flights throughout the solar system and beyond. |
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Bush budget shocker for NASAFrom the outside it looks like a 2-percent increase over 2001 (and a 7-percent increase over 2000), but the 2002 NASA budget of 14.5 billion dollars the new administration unveiled on Feb. 28 will actually destroy much that the space agency believed in:
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Swedish astro- & aeronomy satellite launchedA Russian Start-1 rocket launched from the Svobodny space center on Feb. 20 has put the Swedish satellite Odin 1 into the intended circular, solar-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 625.7 km, and contact was established 2 hours later. Odin is a unique science satellite it that its 1.1-meter sub-mm telescope will be used both for astronomy and for aeronomy, the study of the upper Earth atmosphere. The Swedish Space Corporation, on behalf of the Swedish National Space Board and the space agencies of Canada, Finland and France, had developped the satellite - despite challenging goals and the use of advanced technology Odin is a small, low-cost spacecraft, like the earlier Swedish research satellites Viking and Freja.Odin will work in unexplored bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, around wavelengths of 0.5 mm and 3 mm: These contain emission lines from important molecules such as water vapour, molecular oxygen, ozone and carbon monoxide. The lines will be used as tools to study processes in the Earth's atmosphere and in astronomical objects. Complementary information on the atmosphere will come from spectral lines at ultraviolet and optical wavelengths. Major scientific issues relate to star formation processes, interstellar chemistry and atmospheric ozone balance. For aeronomy the spacecraft will follow the Earth limb, scanning the atmosphere up and down from 15 to 120 km at a rate of up to 40 scans per orbit. When observing astronomical sources Odin will continuously point towards the object for up to 60 minutes. |
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The beginnings of astrophotography: an exhibition in GermanyIt can still be seen in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany, until March 11: "Dans le champ des etoiles - Les photographes et le ciel" or "Sonne, Mond und Sterne - Himmelsphotographien 1850-2000", a unique French show that contrasts modern art with pioneering celestial photography in the 2nd half of the 19th century. The latter is represented by a large number of rare original prints, remarkably well preserved - and with a technical and aesthetical power that blasts away nearly all of the contemporary attempts at grasping the Universe with photographic or related art forms. Unfortunately quite a number of the 19th century artefacts that were on display at the musee d'Orsay in Paris last year are missing in the Stuttgart version (but can still be seen in the lavishly illustrated catalog, available only in French); nonetheless the exhibit is definitely worth a visit for any amateur astronomer and sky photographer. And in particular for any eclipse enthusiast, as the early targets of photography in the sky were the Sun, the Moon and eclipses of both of them.The first lunar photograph shown is from 1849, with rapid progress in quality within the next few years, the first partial solar and lunar eclipse images shown date from 1851 (July 28) and 1856, respectively - and the first fine sequence of a total solar eclipse was obtained in Spain on July 18, 1860. These stunning pictures - also for sale at the box office as a nice bookmarker - began to convince astronomers that photography would soon replace drawing at the eyepiece as the recording technique of choice. With the much fainter Deep Sky, that would take a few decades longer, but already in 1900 German astrophotographer Max Wolf managed to overexpose the North America Nebula and the Milky Way in his image of Cygnus! Unfortunately the captions with most exhibits are poor, lacking all information about the optics employed, and there are some bizarre mistakes. But they cannot distract from the intrinsic value of this amazing exhibition, drawn from 30 collections in 6 countries: Even if you have seen some of the pioneering photographs in books, it's a very different experience to see them as real prints. (Review by D. Fischer) |
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ISS UpdateDestiny has become a part of the ISS, after 3 EVAs (the last one being the 100th U.S. spacewalk), while Atlantis could return to Earth only 2 days late (and in Edwards). Meanwhile Discovery has been rolled out, Columbia returns to the KSC, the pricetag of the ISS has gone up another $4b, the boss of NASA's manned space program has been ousted, Expedition One flew its Soyuz around the station, a new Progress has reached the ISS and Russia and NASA are negotiating about Tito (for the ISS' fate in the new NASA budget see above, story 3). ISS Status # 7, 6, Mission Status Center and STS-98 Mission Journal, MCC Status Reports # 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, NASA, JPL, JSC (earlier) and MPG Press Releases.Coverage of March 1: SC. Feb. 28: CNN, AN, SD. Feb. 27: FT. Feb. 26: CNN ( SC, HC related), BBC, AN, ST, SC, FT, RP. Feb. 25: FT, ST (other story), Orlando S. Feb. 24: HC, SC, ST. Feb. 23: Abbey letter, FT, CNN (other story), SC. Feb. 21: FT, SC. Feb. 20: SN, AN, BBC, ( other story), SPIEGEL (earlier), SC, CNN (earlier), FT, AP. Feb. 19: BBC, AFP (more nice exterior views). Feb. 18: SN. Feb. 17: SN, AP ( earlier), FT, SC, ST, RP. |
Feb. 16:
Exterior views of the ISS from
NASA TV, stories by
SN
(earlier),
CNN,
SC
(other,
and
another),
BBC,
AP,
SPIEGEL.
Feb. 15:
Aerospace Daily,
BBC,
AP,
FT
(
other story),
HC,
RP,
SC.
Feb. 14:
HC,
CNN,
AP,
SC
(
earlier,
other story),
AN, SN,
SPIEGEL.
Feb. 13:
CNN,
SN,
HC,
BBC,
AN,
AP,
AFP,
FT.
Feb. 12:
SN
(earlier),
AP
(
earlier),
SC, AFP.
Feb. 11:
SN
(earlier),
CNN,
Reuters,
AFP,
FT,
SC,
SPIEGEL.
Feb. 10:
BBC,
CNN,
SN,
AFP,
FT.
Striking photographs from launch day, e.g. with the plume casting a shadow pointing at the Full Moon - also an APOD ... Excellent ISS images by an amateur astronomer with a small telescope: Beinert. Other amateur images of the ISS and Mir: Lindemann & Huber. The Mir Reentry Expedition: Homepage and a Press Release plus another one, BBC, SC (earlier). The 250-km mark of descent will be reached on March 9 +/- 4 days: ESA. Earlier timeframe: CNN, AFP, BBC, AP, SlashDot. The inherent danger: SC ( earlier), Interfax, AFP. Who's to blame for Mir's demise? AP [SC], Interfax, AFP. Unhappy 15th anniversary: Statement, SN, CNN, AP [ SC] ( other story), AFP. The view from Australia and Japan: Wired, AP, SPIEGEL. Transcript of a Russian TV Show on Mir. A long obituary: FT. And an ESA FAQ on the reentry. |
More Martian meteorite claims - and challengesNow it's being reported that the magnetite crystals in ALH84001 (see Update # 212 small items) are arranged in chains, just like bacteria would have left them, and that cell-like structures have been found in two other Martian meteorites - both findings fall short of incontrovertible proof of former life on Mars, though: corrected JSC, Ames and again JSC Press Releases, more JSC material, Science@NASA, coverage by SN (earlier), BBC ( earlier), SC ( earlier), ST, SR, SD, AP, AFP, RP, SPIEGEL and a commentary.Vikings would have missed life on Mars, even several million bacteria-like cells per gram of soil, lab test shows: NSU. Meteorites point to abundant water on Mars long ago: SD. Future Mars orbiters get longer life, more duties as data relay stations: Aerospace Daily. Mars Express, Nozomi teams coordinate: ESA Science News. Student scientists discover mysterious dark Mars rocks during MGS observations: Planetary Soc. pictures, JPL Release [SN], Plan. Soc. Press Release. Earlier: MSSS Release. Ultra-Long Duration Balloon didn't get farA giant NASA balloon which scientists hope will usher in a new age of near space research has been forced back to Earth just hours after taking off from Australia - the balloon sprang a leak and had to be landed by remote control about 250 km from the launch site at Alice Springs but will fly again in March: Homepage, Wallops Release, AFP, AP, BBC, AN, Reuters, SR, SPIEGEL.HETE-2 declared operational, sees first burst!On February 2, 2001, the High Energy Transient Explorer-2 (HETE-2) satellite achieved operational status, along with its network of primary ground stations and its Burst Alert Network (BAN) - fine tuning of the instruments and spacecraft parameters will continue over the coming months during a few orbits each day: GSFC News, Mission Status, SN. The first burst detected (not necessarily a classical GRB, though) was GRB010213.
Chandra finds most distant X-ray galaxy cluster3C294 is 40 percent farther than the next most distant X-ray galaxy cluster, and the existence of such a distant galaxy cluster is important for understanding how the universe evolved: Chandra Press Release, SC.3rd XMM ground station opens in Chile, augmenting Perth and Kourou: ESA Science News. Satellite's efficiency hailed: ibid. XMM's spectra and what they tell us: ibid. Astronomers scramble to use INTEGRAL - the Call for Proposals to use guest observer time on ESA's forthcoming gamma-ray observatory has resulted in 291 individual proposals: ibid. Lessons from the ISO satellite on an operational level: ibid. |
Interferometry allows imaging of dust 'doughnut' around young starNew technology has allowed scientists to peer inside a distant, doughnut-shaped dust cloud surrounding a massive young star - an interferometer aperture mask was placed in front of the Keck telescope's secondary mirror, giving astronomers a view four times better than the HST for small fields of view: GSFC Release, CNN.How a galactic bar triggers star formationhas been studied with the in NGC 2903, where the HST resolved the 'hot-spots' in the center into individual stars and star clusters for the first time: paper by Alonso-Herrero & al., ESA HST Release.Hubble snaps galaxy on the edge - the image captures with intricate precision the massive clouds of dust and gas that extend along the galaxy's main disk: STScI Release, CNN. Galileo's camera is behaving strangelyAn intermittent problem with the camera on the Galileo spacecraft may be related to effects of Jupiter's radiation belts - the spacecraft signaled an alarm from the camera system three times while Galileo passed close to Jupiter from Dec. 28, 2000, to Jan. 1, 2001: Mission Status, AN, CNN.How Io's mountains are formed - by stress & chaos: U. Wash. Press Release, SC. A dynamic volcano eruption on Io, caught by Galileo: PIA028... 4, 5, 6, SD. Cryomagma on Ganymede suspected: U Wash. Press Release, SC, BBC, SPIEGEL. The geology of Europa, classified and discussed by PSRD. Wild ideas for Outer Planets missions were discussed at a NASA meeting: SC. Voyager boss Ed Stone called a space hero: FT. The Sun's magnetic field is flippingThe Sun has just undergone an important change - the magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere just a few months ago, now points south: Science@NASA, RP.The first science results from the Cluster mission have been presented: a disgusting ESA Information Note full of militaristic metaphors (here are an illustrated version and a similarly militaristic PPARC Press Release). An earlier, more "PEACEful", ESA Cluster story: ESA Science News. Coverage by AN.
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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
