Compiled and written by Daniel Fischer, Skyweek - older "Mirrors" in the Archive

The brightening and fading could be compatible with some gamma ray burst models, although this is in general seems to be an ever stranger case than the February event. Next to the new source is a strange extended one: "The 'unusual' object is an extended source shaped like a 'Z', extending 7" from tip-to-tip; the morphology of this source is highly unusual, although it could be a superposition of three or more sources," report B. Schaefer et al. And, of course, the new GRB counterpart already has its own homepage ... (IAUC # 6649 - 6658 of May 9 to 12th, 1997)

A flood of new comet discoveries - and comet X-rays explained

Furthermore there are now 5 "offical" comet discoveries by SOHO with its coronographs (the latest being 1997 H2 from late April): All are Kreutz group sungrazers. And yet another interesting item: Joe Montani found two comets within 3 days with the SPACEWATCH telescope in April. (various TA ECs and IAUC # 6652+9 of May 9+12th, 1997)

Meanwhile, on the theoretical front, the mysterious X-ray emissions from several comets look pretty much explained. After months of debate and calculations, only two model candidates had survived, namely the scattering of solar X-rays by extremely small cometary dust particles ("attodust") and a process involving heavy ions in the solar wind. The latter idea has been tested in a supercomputer, and it can explain both the intensity and the morphology of the X-rays from comet Hyakutake. The ions enter the comet's coma and take the electrons they lack from there, but are in an excited state afterwards. And when the electrons return to the ground state, the X-rays are emitted.

Mars Global Surveyor enters Safe Mode

These calibrations involved commanding the spacecraft to rotate in various directions in order to ascertain the performance of the gyroscopes. Surveyor had just completed the calibration that involved a +Z-axis rotation when the flight software commanded the spacecraft into contingency mode (this mode is similar to safe mode, but involves fewer precautionary measures taken to safe the spacecraft) when the direction to the Sun as measured by Surveyor's Sun sensors disagreed with the predicted direction to the Sun.

This discrepancy in Sun position was approximately 5 degrees. Entry into safe mode occurred about five hours later when a flight software task timed out and failed to report back Surveyor's central processor. At this time, the flight team is identifying the software task that timed out; the return of the MGS to full operational state ("there is no threat to the mission") will take several days. (adapted from MGS Flight Status Report of 9 May 1997)

Briefly noted:

First light for Germany's largest public telescope: In early May the first observations with the 1 meter telescope at Trebur near Ruesselsheim were made - and it was amazing how well may deep sky objects could be seen perfectly even from such an Urban location. This summer the facility will be open to the public.

The countdown is underway for Atlantis and its next Mir docking. Among the crew members: the first Russian woman on a U.S. spaceship. The first Israeli citizen has also been booked on a Shuttle mission, for 1998 - but since he's in the military the name of "Col. A" is a secret...

Update #46 of May 9th, 1997, at 18:15 UTC

Hale-Bopp leaves, setting visibility records

• No other comet in recorded history has been visible to the naked eye as long as Hale-Bopp! This month the first naked eye sighting is already 12 months old - the previous record of naked-eye visibility was was held by comet Flaugergues of 1811 with 9 months.
• Another record broken is the time spent with more than magnitude 0.0 in the sky: Hale-Bopp stayed there for 7 weeks (early March til late April), beating De Cheseaux of 1744 and Tycho of 1577 that both stayed that bright for 6 weeks. No other comet since 1500 held that brightness for more than 2 weeks, by the way.
• And finally there is Hale-Bopp's performance as a bright object in a dark sky: Only a very few comets over the last few centuries have ever been magnitude zero or brighter in a dark sky and there is no really clear-cut case where the observations (not the theoretical light curve) seem to imply that a comet was significantly brighter than Hale-Bopp in a dark sky.

Also, the third tail of Hale-Bopp consisting of neutral sodium atoms (see Update #44) is still there as an image from May 2nd shows - you can see all 3 tails in an animation, too, or view a spacebased view of the sodium tail from the Polar spacecraft. But the most unusual views of Hale-Bopp were those from the space shuttle during the last mission. More recent Hale-Bopp news can be found in the ESO Updates of April 23rd and 30th.

The Age of the Universe and its oldest stars - all problems solved?

The age of the Universe is still much more controversial, but a maximum age of the stars in our galaxy of 13 billion years would fit better with many world models than the "old" values going up to sometimes 17 billion years. Maybe the history of the Universe went like this: it was born perhaps 12.5 to 13 billion years ago. The most ancient globular-cluster and halo stars formed about 12 to 12.5 billion years ago, making the spherical halo of our Galaxy. The flat disk of the Milky Way, where most of luminous stars live, was in existence about 0.5 to 1 billion years later.

Other results from Hipparcos released in advance of the big Venice conference are less fundamental but more visually appealing: It has actually been possible to aperture-synthesize images of a double star from Hipparcos measurements using much the same software as applied to radio interferometry data. The results are pretty amazing as the star is 34 light years away and its components are closer together than our Sun and Saturn.

Five "Discovery" mission candidates enter the final round

• Aladdin, a mission to gather samples of the small Martian moons Phobos and Deimos by firing four projectiles into the moons' surface and gathering the ejecta during slow flybys, and then return the samples to Earth for detailed study,
• the Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR), a mission to take images and comparative spectral maps of at least three comet nuclei and analyze the dust flowing from them,
• Genesis, a mission to collect a sample of the solar wind and return it to Earth for detailed analysis (one of the finalists in the fourth round of Discovery program selections under the name Seuss-Urey),
• the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging mission, or Messenger, an orbiter spacecraft carrying seven instruments to image and study the closest planet to the Sun, and
• the Venus Environmental Satellite (VESAT), an orbiter spacecraft to study the atmospheric chemistry and meteorology of Earth's cloud-covered neighbor using an imager, near- infrared spectrograph, a temperature mapper and an X-band radar.

Will ESA merge the Planck and FIRST satellites? Because the money for space science is tight the European Space Agency is now studying the possibility of merging its medium size cosmology mission Planck (formerly known as COBRAS/SAMBA, then Planck Surveyor) with the last Horizon 2000 cornerstone FIRST, a major IR observatory. While the missions' objectives are not very compatible (Planck has to scan the sky all the time to look for minor variations in the cosmic background radiation from the Big Bang, while FIRST wants to focus on individual sources for a long time), the fusion of both satellites would save the high launch cost of Planck (60 MECU) and would accelerate the launch to 2005. (Science Now April 22, 1997)

Aerobraking plan for Mars Global Surveyor revised

With the panel in its current position the original plan would not have worked as the Martian atmosphere would have folded the array up. So the revised plan calls for turning the panel by 180 degrees so that the forces act in the right direction. The solar wings - which feature a Kapton flap at the tip of each wing for added drag - supply most of the surface area that will slow the spacecraft during 4 months. Surveyor's orbit around Mars will shrink from an initial, highly elliptical orbit of 45 hours to a nearly circular orbit of less than two hours.

As a consequence of the new aerobraking configuration, the more sensitive cell-side of the unlatched wing will be exposed directly to the wind flow of atmospheric entry, requiring that aerobraking be done in a more gradual, gentle manner, but there is enough thermal margin. Science mapping is scheduled to finally begin in March 1998. It is still undetermined, by the way, whether images of Mars will be taken during the aerobraking phase, but expect some in early July (supporting the Mars Pathfinder), and (NASA News #85 of April 30, 1997 + priv. comm. Mike Malin, MOC PI)

Briefly noted:

Updated figures on NASA's FY 1998 Budget Request show that science in particular fares well. However, the Civilian Space Authorization Act for FY'98 and '99, now introduced in the house, would give NASA even more, 13.8 billion $ in 1998 and 13.9 billion in 1999.

Galileo's final close flyby of Ganymede took place on May 7th and was the 8th close satellite flyby in total during the mission. Meanwhile Cassini has arrived in Cape Canaveral and is being prepared for its Oct. 6th launch. From its camera we can expect up to 300,000 pictures of the Saturnian system during the four year tour of the Cassini orbiter between 2004 and 2008 - that will be some traffic on the Internet or whatever is the hip way to communicate then ... :-)

News Capsules: A Chronology of Planetary Exploration is now available ... as are reports from the 34rd Space Congress in Florida ... and the Solar Rotation Reports by the ALPO... The status of the Next Generation Space Telescope is described in a long Science News article... and CNN has opened yet another space site.

Also of note (in the light of the 50 year anniversary of the so-called Roswell incident): a series of OMNI articles on UFOs, an article on satellite interferometry, a review of the 1994 Jupiter Crash. There are still fine current Mars images coming in at MarsWatch 1996-1997. And... did you know that the expected outburst of the Leonid meteors in 1998 (the "King of Showers") already has a homepage?

Update #45 of May 7th, 1997, at 19:35 UTC

Two new planets and a Brown Dwarf

• The evidence for a planet with 1.7 Earth masses orbiting Geminga is rather indirect: The clock-like gamma ray pulses from the source reveal a 5.1-year cycle that may be due to a planet with 1.7 times the mass of Earth. Unfortunately the pulsar's shifting emissions have been traced reliably for only one cycle: they could simply reflect changes in the pulsar's internal structure. Confirming the planet hypothesis will require further timing data or other evidence, such as an eclipse of Geminga. (S&T Weekly News of May 2, 1997)
• The planet with at least 1.1 Jupiter masses of Rho Coronae Borealis , in contrast, is revealing itself by a clear radial velocity change that was detected with a high-end spectrograph at a 1.5 meter telescope in Arizona. The new planet - depending on the criteria used about the 10th reliably detected case - is interesting because the orbit is circular: This suggests that the planet was formed like the planets in our own solar system, that is, through the slow coalescence of dust and gas from the circularly rotating disk that is thought to surround all newborn stars. A more eccentric, or highly elliptical orbit, could imply that the companion object was a failed star, the unsuccessful second partner in a potential binary star system. (CfA Press Release of April 24, 1997)
• The Brown Dwarf only 33 light years from the Sun which has been named KELU-1 is remarkable because it stands alone and is old: All other reliably identified Brown Dwarfs are either in orbit around bright stars or are young members of the Plejades star cluster. With its "brightness" of 22.3 mag in the visible it will be the target of many upcoming studies with large telescopes. (ESO Press Release #7 of April 28, 1997)

The optimists are already classifying the extra-solar planets into three groups: "real" Jupiter-like planets with masses below 2 solar masses (don't forget: the radial velocity technique only yields lower mass limits in most cases!), "superplanets" with between 2 and 13 solar masses, and Brown Dwarfs with more than 13 solar masses. The superplanets differ from the planets by the physical mechanism that stops them from collapsing, while Brown Dwarfs already have low-level nuclear fusion reactions in their core (which, however, don't allow them to shine like stars). So far about 9 planets/superplanets and 11 Brown Dwarfs in orbits around main-sequence stars have been detected. (Basri & Marcy, preprint [that's a PS file!])

Antimatter cloud hovers above Milky Way

The maps of the positrons were produced by an instrument on Compton called the Oriented Scintillation Spectrometer Experiment (OSSE). It is sensitive to gamma rays produced by the annihilation of positrons, the antimatter counterpart of the ordinary electron. These gamma rays with an energy of 511,000 electron volts are produced when positrons (antimatter) and electrons (matter) collide and annihilate. Antimatter is rare in the Universe. Positrons can be created through the decay of naturally occurring radioactive elements (which were in turn created in astrophysical sources such as supernovae, novae, and Wolf-Rayet stars).

Another way positrons might be created is when matter falls into the extremely high gravitational field of e.g. a black hole and its temperature increases until it is hot enough to create pairs of positrons and electrons which then may stream away; and so forth. The newly discovered antimatter cloud could thus have been formed by multiple star bursts occurring in the central region of the Galaxy, jets of material from a black hole near the Galactic center, the merger of two neutron stars, or it could have been produced by an entirely different source. Since it is seen in the direction of the Galactic Center, it is probably located there, 25 000 light years away. But even if this antimatter cloud would be here, there wouldn't be any effect: It contains only about one positron per several hundred cubic meters of space.

Briefly noted:

Water all over the Galaxy has been discoverd by the spectrographs of the ISO satellite: in dark clouds towards the Galactic Center as well as in young and old stars and in the atmospheres of several outer planets. From the ground the detection of water in space is very difficult because of our atmosphere: The ISO satellite has virtually opened a new window into the Universe. (ESA Info Note # 12 of April 29, 1997)

A big conference on the results of the Hipparcos mission takes place next week in Venice, and daily updates have been promised. For years this unique satellite has generated a huge database of high precision star positions and motions - and now it's time for the scientists to present the results.

Severe doubts about the anisotropy of space (see last Update) have been voiced around the world: The data used are said to be very much outdated, the analysis perhaps flawed - and, most importantly, an independent test with new data shows nothing. The effect doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny...

The identity of the probable gamma ray burster counterpart (see last Update) gets more confusing all the time: Another group of astronomers does not see any proper motion of the source in the same HST images, and the fading of the diffuse source around the exceedingly faint point of light (that groundbased observers talked about) hasn't been confirmed by Hubble either (IAUC # 6643 of May 6, 1997). The only thing everyone agrees on: A third HST image is needed, but it will be possible only in a few months, when the sun moves away from the region. (Science of April 25, 1997, p. 529-30)

News Capsules: The most detailled simulation of a comet hitting Earth has been produced as a public test run of a new military supercomputer... The first 5 satellites for the Iridium constellation were launched on May 5th - on the first Delta 2 launch after the January accident. So far the USAF only knows that one of the boosters ruptured, but why has eluded the investigators. The testing of the booster casings has since been improved... Another multi-satellite constellation is also making progress: Boeing is investing 100 Mio.$ into the bold Teledesic system in which 200+ satellites shall build an "internet in the sky"...

Live data from the Lunar Prospector will be fed into U.S. high schools (and the homes of space enthusiasts around the world) through the Moonlink project. But beware: This outreach effort is a commercial one - you might be charged... The launch of the HALO amateur rocket was delayed again - next attempt: May 10th?... There are now 10+ competitors for the X Price for the first successful privately built space rocket... The first images from the new HST instruments will be unveiled on May 12th at 11:00 a.m. EDT = 15:00 UTC! They should come up right here!

Update #44 of April 21st, 1997, at 15:15 UTC

Physicists baffled: Is the Universe anisotropic?

From Earth, the axis of this orientation runs toward the constellation Sextans, roughly in the direction of Leo and Gemini and high in the southern evening sky this time of year. The other end of the axis points toward the constellations Aquila and Equuleus. (Stargazers, of course, will see nothing special when they look in that direction.) It might have several interpretations: It could be an intrinsic property of the universe, or it might indicate that an undiscovered particle, such as the long- theorized axion, is at work.

The team from the Universities of Rochester and Kansas made the finding by studying the polarization of radio waves from 160 distant galaxies as measured in previous experiments by astronomers around the world. B. Nodland and J. Ralston found that the plane of polarization of the light rotates like a corkscrew as the light travels through space, and that the orientation of the universal axis that they've discovered is key to the amount of rotation. The rotation of polarization depends on the angle at which the light moves relative to the axis and on the distance the light travels before being measured.

The effect is crudely analogous to that of a crystal that twists light depending on the direction light is traveling through the crystal. Astronomers have long known about a somewhat similar effect called the Faraday effect, which is caused by magnetic fields between galaxies and causes the plane of polarization of light to rotate as the light travels through space. The newly discovered effect is in addition to the Faraday effect - and it is very subtle: Light traveling across the heavens undergoes one full rotation of its plane of polarization about once in a billion years.

Whatever the cause, the work - which will surely cause frantic follow-up studies around the world - could have widespread implications. Scientists have long theorized that the Big Bang was completely symmetric. Says Nodland: "Perhaps it was not a perfect Big Bang, but a Big Bang with a twist to space and time." Such a twist would be seen today as a ripple of non-uniformity, perhaps as the axis (an "axis of anisotropy") represents.

It moves! Gamma Burster Mystery deepens!

This was considered even more evidence for the cosmological hypothesis because the - admittedly crude - models for the burster physics predicted a slow fade in this case (and a fast one if the bursts are a phenomenon in our own Milky Way). But then astrometry was performed on the point source (and several other stars in Hubbles field of view) - and the GRB counterpart candidate showed a high proper motion in the sky while the other stars stood still! The "counterpart" had moved by 18 milliarcseconds (mas) in just 2 weeks, giving it "a proper motion of 540 mas/yr," as P. Caraveo et al. write in IAU Circular # 6629 of April 17th.

"Therefore, the object appears to be galactic," they conclude: "For example, it could be a compact star at 100 pc moving at 260 km/s. Its association with the reported optical transient and GRB 970228 is compelling. Further HST observations are urgently requested." And things get stranger still: According to Keck II observations in IAUC # 6631 of April 18th, the diffuse source around the point source seems to have vanished - was there no galaxy at all in the first place?! The diffuse feature seen next to the star in the first HST image: Was it some local phenomenon, excited by the burst and now gone for good? This will be an interesting summer for astrophysics!

Mysterious third tail of comet Hale-Bopp

Images from April 16th "display two main tails," the astronomers write in IAU Circular #6631 of April 18th. According to their description of the images, "the first is a very linear feature 6.6 deg long and less than (or equal to) 10 arcmin wide with parallel edges over its entire length and a very sharp south edge at p.a. 52 deg (3 deg north of the projected antisolar direction). The second is a broad diffuse northern tail extending to the edge of the frame, i.e., to more than 6.5 deg.

"While the second tail coincides with the dust tail as seen in an adjacent continuum filter, the first tail has no such counterpart, and we identify it as a neutral Na tail. In particular, near-simultaneous imaging with an H2O+ filter (lambda_0 = 619.3nm, FWHM = 4.5 nm) displays an ion tail of entirely different and more complex morphology with a main ray at p.a. 46 deg. We believe that this is the first clear separation of a neutral tail of a comet from the dust and ion tails."

The existence of this third type of cometary tail was confirmed in additional images obtained on April 17th. So what does that mean? As Richard West writes on the ESO Hale-Bopp science news page, the physics behind the new tail are unclear: "While the usual cometary ion tail consists of electrically charged ions which have been accelerated by the action of the solar wind particles, it is not obvious which mechanism(s) may be responsible for the presence of the relatively short-lived sodium atoms so far from the nucleus and the coma.

"How could they achieve the necessary, very high velocities? Another possibility is that they are contained in very small particles or molecules which move fast along the direction of the new tail and then release sodium atoms out there... Additional observations of the neutral sodium tail were obtained by astronomers from the European Hale-Bopp Team... Saturday evening (April 19). In particular, it was possible to obtain high-dispersion spectra of this tail, confirming the presence of rapidly moving sodium atoms there."

Pegasus rocket launches Spanish astronomy satellite, cremated VIPs

Minisat 01 carries the EURD = Espectrografo Ultravioleta Extremo para la Radiacion Difusa, a spectrograph that will study the background radiation of the Universe in the extreme UV range, from the terrestrial airglow over the interstellar medium to speculative effects from decaying massive neutrinos, and the LEGRI = Low Energy Gamma-Ray Imager, which will study gamma sources in the 10 - 200 keV range. Microsat 01 also carries a Spanish microgravity experiment.

Briefly noted:

It is now certain: The MSL-1 space shuttle mission will fly again! And so the international team of microgravity researchers actually gets 1 1/2 missions for the price of one, taking the first experience from many of the experiments during the aborted mission STS-83 into account. For NASA this quick reflight is also an interesting logistical exercise - that could repeat during the complex assembly operations of the International Space Station.

The role of Russia in the ISS program meanwhile is less defined than ever: The lack of funding of the Service Module now threatens to delay the launch of the first ISS element by up to 11 months (from Nov. 1997 to Oct. 1998), and NASA is working frantically on various redesign options that would replace most of Russias crucial contributions to the station by U.S.-made hardware. Crucial decisions coming up.

News Capsules: An enormous flare of gamma rays has been detected from the galaxy Mk 421 - with more photons than expected... The dewar of Hubble's NICMOS camera has now stabilized, but the telescope has lost a gyro. No harm done: That happens rather often, and enough spares are on board... Meanwhile Hubbles designated successor, the Next Generation Space Telescope us making progress, and a major meeting on this central part of the Origins program drew over 100 attendees... A 1 meter telescope for the public will soon open in the German town of Trebur... And the seemingly crazy Dutch experiment with frogs levitating in a strong magnetic field could actually replace some kinds of microgravity experiments.

Update #43 of April 13th, 1997, at 22:00 UTC

Hale-Bopp fading slowly after brilliant show

While the comet's coma is fading a bit, the dust tail stays strong - and the plasma tail gets more interesting with the comet moving closer to the ecliptic and thus the more chaotic conditions of the solar equatorial solar wind. More than 3000 images can now be found on the outstanding JPL Hale-Bopp Home Page. Among the funnier pictures are one of H-B over the World Trade Center - even the lights of NYC couldn't hide it, so bright did it get. And it was fun not only in visible light but also in the Infrared and radio regime.

Fittingly, a lot of scientific insights from the months before H-B's perihelion have now been published in Science of March 28th. Among the findings obtained in the visible (both groundbased and with Hubble), IR and radio spectral range:

• The diameter of the nucleus is between 27 and 42 km (this follows from HST images of the quiet coma which have a component due to a point source in the middle - the nucleus itself is unresolved). Apparently the nucleus consists of subsegments with varying composition: Otherwise it would be hard to understand why the production rate of dust or certain molecules followed a different temporal evolution than the water production.
• At 2.9 AU H-B produced water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide at a ratio of 10 : 6 : 2. These molecules dominate the volatiles in its nucleus - and also interstellar molecular clouds. The link between at least this comet and the ISM is thus strengthened. Also, the signature of olivin crystals was found in H-B's coma in the IR - another link to deep space because the same mineral is found in the circumstellar disks around Vega-type stars.
• Water started to take over from carbon monoxide as the "driver" of H-B's coma at a solar distance of about 3 AU. The gas production in general was amazing. In July of 1995 - when H-B was discovered - it was already 20 times as active as Halley at the same distance from the sun, and it February of 1997 it was 100 times as active! The dust production exceeded that of any other comet on record!

The origin of the Moon: All questions answered?

But only now the last major gap in the "Big Whack" theory has been closed: A series of numerical N-body simulations by Japanese and U.S. planetologists has demonstrated that one major body will form indeed out of the debris - even if most of the disk was inside the Roche limit initially. So far so good, but one (minor?) problem remains: To make the models work, about twice as much angular momentum is needed immediately after the impact than we find today in the Earth-Moon system. Where that angular momentum went is unclear right now - but everything else fits. (Ida & al., Preprint 1997)

Briefly noted:

The space shuttle mission STS-83 was launched and aborted too quickly for The Cosmic Mirror to catch up - there is hope for a reflight of this MSL-1 spacelab mission (one of the last few planned for that old European orbital lab). Meanwhile long-awaited spare parts have reached Mir with a Progress ship on April 8th - and a delay of the construction start of the Space Station to the end of 1998 seems all but inevitable.

The replacement of all four Cluster spacecraft has been decided by the ESA Science Programme Committee: This is a 'cornerstone' of the Horizon 2000 program after all, industry offered bargain rates for the building of the satellites, and the use of two Soyuz rockets for the launches makes the reflight of the Cluster mission just affordable.

News Capsules: An amazing number of press releases has come out of the National Astronomy Meeting in the U.K., e.g. on the shape of the Milky Way's halo (it is a sphere) or spiral waves in accretion disks... Lots of news reports were generated by another solar corona event that "threatened" to affect near-Earth space. Alas, no harm was done, and only lots of pretty pictures from SOHO and scientific results are all that remains... The "Father of the HST," Lyman Spitzer has died... The missions of the old interplanetary NASA craft Pioneer 6,7,8 and 10 are over, but Pioneer 10 will still be used for occasional telemetry experiments.

Update #42 of April 1st, 1997, at 17:30 UTC
(Heavens Gate mirror addresses updated May 9th, 1997)

The Solar Neutrino Problem is one of Physics

and not of Astrophysics, new helioseismology data about the solar interior indicate

Not anymore, say John Bahcall and other astrophysicists: The first data from a new instrument named LOWL (which operates on Mauna Loa in Hawaii) seem to exclude all tampering with the sun's interior. LOWL measures the oscillations of the sun with such a quality that they can be 'inverted': Physical parameters almost down to the core of the sun become accessible. And they agree with the models very well.

"The sound speeds of solar models" close to the standard view "agree with helioseismological measurements to a rms discrepancy of better than 0.2% throughout almost the entire Sun," write Bahcall et al. - and models with artificial changes to bring down the neutrino flux (such as helium mixing) do not. Thus the implication is that it is the neutrino physics that must be modified to account for their apparent deficiency. (Bahcall & al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 171-174 [1997], Basu & al., Astrophys. J. 460, 1064-70 [1996], Tomczyk & al., Solar Physics 159, 1-21 [1995])

Briefly noted:

Meanwhile tons on information are available on the cult mass suicide that was linked indeed to Hale-Bopp and UFO beliefs - which, however, were haunting the group since 1972! Even comet Kohoutek was frightening them once, and at another point they took the movie "Cocoon" for a heavenly sign. While the original "Heaven's Gate" website is totally overloaded, there is at least one complete mirror out there (and visit also Heavensgate.org) ...

More trouble on Mir: Not only is the oxygen supply in a volatile state - the same can be said about the space station's attitude control. On March 19th the primary angular rate sensor failed and while the automatic switchover to the backup system was under way, the station went out of control. The cosmonauts had to re-stabilize it by hand (with the help of small thrusters) and could restart the gyrodynes only afterwards. (AW&ST March 24, 1997, p. 27)

The problem with the dewar of HST's NICMOS camera could cut its lifetime by half and will disable camera #3 for a while. You can follow the troubleshooting 'live' at the STScI. The other instruments are working without trouble, though, and the WFPC2 was already used to quickly check the site of the Feb. 28th gamma burst (see Update #40). However, another stronger burst on Jan. 11th did not produce any X-ray or optical transient (IAUC # 6598 of March 21, 1997) - was the Feb. 28 'counterpart' none afterall...?

The 2001 Mars missions will test technology for human exploration: While manned (oops, crewed :-) missions to Mars are not on NASA's agenda at this moment, the Mars Surveyor 2001 lander will carry important precursor technologies nonetheless. Most important: an experiment to make methane rocket fuel from Mars' own carbon dioxide! The 2001 orbiter will act as a data relay and also perform mineralogical mapping of Mars. (NASA News # 51 of March 25, 1997)

BREAKING NEWS - Update # 41 of March 27th, 1997 - BREAKING NEWS

Mass Suicide linked to Hale-Bopp UFO Myth

Did the 39 from the California 'computer cult' want to join the comet's famous - and inexisting - UFO companion?

A former member of this strange 'monastery' - apparently the home of out-of-this-world but excellent WWW designers - had received a video tape from the cult in which the mass suicide was announced and 'explained,' his employer told CNN a few hours ago. It seems that the cult members were convinced that there was a beneficial UFO following comet Hale-Bopp and that is was their mission to join its crew - by leaving their terrestrial bodies...

The myth of the 'Hale-Bopp companion' which incidentally was most 'developped' on the WWW was started in November of 1996 by a crazed amateur astrophotographer who went onto a no less crazy radio talk show - and the 'Saturn-like Object' was born. Now, apparently, it is no funny business anymore. (CNN on the air, videotext and online March 27, 1997)

Go to the previous 10 issues. Other historical issues can be found in the Archive.