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By Daniel Fischer Every page present in Europe & the U.S.!
| Ahead | Awards 
The latest issue!
| A German companion! (SuW version) Current mission news: MGS (latest pictures!) + Cassini + Stardust |
of 96P/Machholz in early January: the view on Jan. 7, the comet and a big CME on Jan. 9 (picture and movie), movies of the complete flyby (small and large version), a SOHO Hotshot, Sungrazer.org, ESA Science News and an APOD. Access to SOHO's latest images and LASCO C3 movie. A stunningly complex coronal mass ejection left the Sun on Jan. 4: SOHO Hotshot, ESA Science News, GSFC [SR], movie, CNN, SC, SPIEGEL. The solar cycle seems to have 2 peaks, and the 2nd one is here: Science@NASA, NZ.
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Based on Spaceflight Now's Tracking Station, the Space Calendar and the Astro-Almanach.
Jan. 1 | Jupiter in opposition | |
Feb. 5 | Launch of HESSI on a Pegasus: a small NASA satellite to study solar flares. | Homepage |
Feb. 28 | HST Servicing Mission 3B begins, during which Hubble gets the new camera ACS, a NICMOS cooler and new solar arrays. | Homepages of STS-109 and the ACS and a detailled preview. |
Feb. 28 | Launch of the ESA environmental satellite ENVISAT on an Ariane 5 | Homepage |
March 5 | Launch of the two GRACE satellites, to map the Earth's gravity fields by making accurate measurements of the distance between them | Homepage |
March 24 | Launch of Aqua alias EOS-PM, the next big EOS satellite. | Homepage |
April 25 | Soyuz launch with two paying passengers bound for the ISS, an ESA astronaut and the 2nd space tourist | |
Early May | Mars, Saturn & Venus close together in the evening sky | |
June 10 | Annular eclipse of the Sun all over the Pacific; reaches Mexico just at sunset | Anderson's climate analysis & maps |
July 1 | Launch of CONTOUR, a multi-comet mission. | Homepage |
July 16 | Launch of GALEX, the Galaxy Evolution Explorer | Homepage |
Sep. 10 | Launch of ICESat and CATSAT, the Ice, Cloud & Land Elevation Satellite and the student-built Cooperative Astrophysics & Technology Satellite. | Homepages of ICESat and CATSAT |
Oct. 17 | Launch of INTEGRAL, an ESA gamma ray observatory | Homepage |
Oct. 30 | Launch of Gravity Probe-B, a long-delayed NASA mission to test General Relativity. | Homepage |
Nov. or Dec. | Launch of Muses-C, a joint asteroid sample return mission between ISAS and NASA. | Muses C info at PDS-SBN and NEO |
Nov. 5 | Galileo's last encounter with a Jovian satellite (it's Amalthea) before it's run into Jupiter | Homepage |
Nov. 19 | Two more Leonid meteor storms likely over Europe & America, unfortunately during almost full Moon | Asher and McNaught pages |
December | Launch of SMART-1, the first ESA Moon mission and the first of the Small Missions for Advanced Research in Technology. | Homepage. |
Dec. 4 | Total eclipse of the Sun, over Africa and Australia | Anderson's pages on climate & maps |
Dec. 5 | Launch of SIRTF, NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility | Homepage |
Dec. 17 | Saturn in opposition |
Galileo passes Io for the last time, emerges from safe modeWhile approaching Jupiter's moon Io on Jan. 17, during the seventh year of its mission around Jupiter, the Galileo spacecraft placed itself into standby mode, from which it was only freed after the closest approach. "We're not totally surprised, because Galileo has already outlived expectations and we knew that it might encounter additional difficulties from the high-radiation environment on this flyby," says project manager Eilene Theilig: "Galileo has already lasted more than four years past its original mission and has survived three-and-a-half times the radiation it was designed to withstand."Images and other data were not collected during the closest phase of the encounter, but Galileo hit its intended flyby point, achieving one of the encounter's primary goals of using Io's gravity to put the spacecraft on course for a September 2003 impact into Jupiter. This flyby was the closest and last for Galileo at any of Jupiter's four major moons. The spacecraft sped within 102 kilometers of Io's volcanic surface. At about 13:41 UTC on Jan. 17, the spacecraft detected a computer reset, which caused Galileo to enter a so-called "safe" mode - a situation similar to some that occurred in previous orbits and probably a result from the radiation environment near Jupiter. On Jan. 18 the spacecraft was fully recovered from the anomaly in which the onboard fault protection routines detected a despun bus reset about 28 minutes before the closest approach to Io. The flight team had worked throughout the day and evening before to re-establish nominal spacecraft operations and to acquire the final track of recorded data. Unfortunately, three tracks of data all planned for recording within hours of closest approach to Io were lost because of the spacecraft problem. The observations of Io are now complete, but other science opportunities were still planned over the next few days. |
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The Martian gullies - finally explained?It was one of the most amazing as well as confusing discoveries by the Mars Global Surveyor: Geologically very young outflow features that implied the presence of a lot of ground water today (see Update # 194). Many different explanations have been put forward in the last 1 ½ years, but now French geomorphologists have come up with perhaps the most convincing hypothesis. They found examples of similar gullies originating from the top of isolated peaks and from dune crests on Mars: In these cases, the involvement of a subsurface aquifer was unlikely.The French also noted that the Martian gullies were strikingly similar to some "debris flows" that they knew from the dry and cold Greenland east coast (a terrestrial environment a little "Mars-like"). These debris flows are not formed by ground water seepage but result from the thawing of the near surface, which becomes impregnated by liquid water when the ground ice and the snow cover melt. Using a state-of-the-art model of the Martian climate the geologists also calculated the temperature of the surface and sub-surface on various locations on Mars and for various obliquities (as the tilt of Mars' axis is changing wildly). These calculations revealed that the only places on Mars where the daily mean temperature has been above the melting point of water during the past obliquity cycles are the mid and high latitudes above 30°, especially on poleward-facing slopes. The corresponding thermal wave could have melted the ground ice over several tens of centimeters. The fact that poleward-facing slopes receive more sunlight and get warmer at high obliquity in the summer is due to the pole being tilted toward the sun. This preferential orientation and the latitudinal distribution of the warmest near-surface temperature coincide with the location of the observed Martian gullies, suggesting a link between near-surface warming and debris flows. (Costard & al., Science 295 [Jan. 4, 2002] 110-3) |
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Helium-3 in Milky Way confirms low density of normal matter in the UniverseAstronomers using an old radio telescope in Green Bank, West Virginia, were able to infer the amount of matter created by the Big Bang, and confirmed that it accounts for only a tiny portion of the effects of gravity observed in the Universe. This conclusion comes from the abundance of the rare element helium-3 (helium with only one neutron and two protons in its nucleus) in the Milky Way Galaxy. Over the course of two decades, the researchers discovered that regardless of where they looked - whether in the areas of sparse star formation like the outer edges of the Galaxy, or in areas of intense star formation near center of the Galaxy - the relative abundance of helium-3 remained constant. Thus most solar-mass stars do not produce enough helium-3 to enrich the ISM significantly.By concurrently measuring the amount of hydrogen (also created by the Big Bang) in the same areas, the scientists were able to determine the relative abundance of helium-3. The ratio of helium-3 to hydrogen - an upper limit of 1.1±0.2 x 10-5 was derived esp. from 133 hours of integration on a specific H II region - gives the ratio of baryons to photons Eta = 5±2 x 10-10 just after the Big Bang. By using the rate of expansion of the Universe (the Hubble Constant), the scientists could then infer just how much normal matter was produced during the Big Bang: OmegaB = (0.020(+0.007,-0.003)) / (Ho/100)² ~ 0.04. A nice fit with the latest CMB results as reported in Update # 223 as well as other recent OmegaB studies from Updates # 224 story 3 item 4 and 227 story 4 item 3. (Bania & al., Nature 415 [Jan. 3, 2002] 54-7) |
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ISS UpdateThere could be a paying tourist on every Soyuz to the ISS from now on. Current Status Reports and coverage of Jan. 18: SC. Jan. 17: FT. Jan. 16: AFP. Jan. 15: ST, AFP, SPIEGEL. Jan. 14: FT, SC. Jan. 6: AFP. Jan. 4: SC. Jan. 3: CNN. Dec. 31: AFP.HST servicing mission slips to Feb. 28 as engineers prepare a new reaction wheel for the orbiting telescope: FT. |
NASA kills FAME astrometry missionNASA has decided not to continue funding the Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer (FAME) mission (see Update # 152 story 11) into Phase C - apparently there was not enough confidence on NASA's part that the mission could achieve the astrometric accuracy it had advertised, and money was running out: Exoplanets, SR, NZ.A better chance for Eddington, now that NASA has chosen Kepler? NSU. Laser Adaptive Optics at the KeckThe W. M. Keck Observatory and the LLNL have created a "virtual" guide star that will greatly increase the ability of the Keck II telescope using adaptive optics to resolve fine details of astronomical objects: Press Release, Astronomy, SC.The first spectroscopic observations with Subaru's Adaptive Optics dealt with a brown dwarf binary system - both objects could be studied individually, despite 0.13 arcseconds separation: Press Release. The Southern Gemini is now open officiallySome pictures have already been released: Gemini and NSF Press Releases, BBC, Astronomy, CNN, SC.Bigger and bigger S-Cams promise to revolutionize certain sectors of optical astronomy: ESA Science News. Jodrell Bank upgrade almost completeThe old British radio telescope looks different now: Progress Report. The man behind the Arecibo radio dish, portrayed by the HC. How NEO research was saved there last month: FT.A radio telescope on the far side of the Moon would fit into the 100-km-wide crater Daedalus: New Sci., CNN. Mt. Graham issue surfaces again, this time in Minnesota: Knight Ridder. British NEO Center goes to LeicesterThe UK's first government backed Information Centre on Near Earth Objects is to be sited at the National Space Science Centre in Leicester, Science Minister Lord Sainsbury announced on Jan. 1: Press Release, CCNet, BBC, ST.How to communicate an asteroid threat: the latest version of the IAU procedure. Another NEA flew close by Earth300 meter 2001 YB5 came within 2 lunar distances on Jan 7 and was within amateur reach - but that was nothing unusual: a movie gallery, Wired and CCNet of Jan. 9 + 10 + 18 on strange media reactions, and earlier coverage by BBC, SF Gate, AFP, FT, SMH, The Province, The Age, Montral Gaz., NZ, RP, SPIEGEL. Yet more close asteroid approaches: Reuters, CNN.More Leonids 2001 reports & pictures, this time from China. The view from Hawaii. The lunar impacts: Pop. Mech. A new discussion forum on the Tunguska event has been created by one of the few remaining doubters of the impact scenario - it's open to all points of view. Water blamed for Ariane 5 failureEngineers have apparently traced the failure of an Ariane 5 last year to water in the plumbing of the Aestus upper stage engine - that caused the "combustion instability" that reduced the engine's thrust: ST.The limits of solar cells and what they can - and cannot - do in the solar system: Science@NASA. |
Carbonates around dying starshave been discovered with ISO - those compounds can thus no longer be thought of as unequivocal indicators for the presence of liquid water: ESA Science News, Astronomy.Rebirth of planetary systems in the embers of dead stars?Even when a star dies, processes among its planets are possible that would lead to the birth of new ones: PSU Press Release, Astronomy, RP.How to study exo-planetary atmospheres now and with future satellites: Science@NASA. Another 'law' for GRBs emergesThe apparent rate at which the burst is cooling off appears to be directly related to the distance of the burst, provided that the rate is measured not in terms of time, but in terms of the total number of gamma rays emitted since the beginning of the pulse: Rice Press Release.'TIGER' stalks elusive origin of cosmic raysFloating high above the Antarctic ice sheet, a balloon-borne experiment is making an unprecendented second loop around the South Pole, probing the heavens for the origin of cosmic rays: Homepage, Univ. of Minnesota and GSFC Press Releases. Still airborne in mid-January, setting new duration record: AP.Inherent speed limit governs how quickly life bounces back after extinctionThe 500-million-year history of life on Earth is a series of booms and busts, but while the busts, or extinctions, can be either sudden or gradual, the booms of diversification of new organisms rarely happen quickly: Berkeley Release, RP.Satellites view the fires around SydneyReleases about pictures by Terra and BIRD. BIRD's first image. EO-1 gets mission extension: NASA Release, ST.Jason has reached its final orbit and begun a six-month calibration process needed before it can replace its predecessor: Status, AFP. Jupiter bright all nightafter its opposition on New Year's night: BBC, Ananova. Jupiter movies with a 10" Newtonian: Stellar Products. Lunar penumbral eclipse on Dec. 30: pictures. A picture of the 'blue flash' of the setting Sun: APOD.Weather data for the 3 astronomical highlights of 2002(the 2 solar eclipses and the Leonids) have been compiled by Jay Anderson.Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) in the Southern skies: a photograph from Jan. 8. 2002: a preview by RP. And 2001 reviewed by CNN, UT and FT.
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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
