entire Web this site SPACE & SCIENCE NEWS: October 2006 home > space & science news > space & science news: October 2006: 1 | 2 | 3 Hubble telescope will get upgrade Oct 31, 2006 Bizarre stellar outburst continues to baffle Oct 31, 2006 NASA's Spitzer peels back layers of star's explosion Oct 30, 2006 NASA to decide Hubble's fate Oct 29, 2006 Soil minerals point to planet-wide ocean on Mars Oct 27, 2006 Undergrad proposes asteroids as radiation shields Oct 27, 2006 Marooned Mars rover returns stunning panorama Oct 26, 2006 What are the chances of aliens sniffing us out? Oct 25, 2006 Viking landers may have missed Martian life Oct 24, 2006 Introducing: Thunderhawk – first X-Racer officially named Oct 23, 2006 Thrills and spills abound at rocket fest Oct 22, 2006 Mars may be cozy place for hardy microbes Oct 22, 2006 No winner in lunar lander challenge Oct 21, 2006 Gold mine holds life untouched by the Sun Oct 20, 2006 Astronauts offer etiquette lessons to space tourists Oct 19, 2006 Doubt cast on lunar ice deposits Oct 19, 2006 Colliding galaxies reveal ephemeral stars Oct 18, 2006 Active volcano may explain changes in Titan's bright spot Oct 17, 2006 NASA'S Spitzer sees day and night on exotic world Oct 16, 2006 Slushy volcanoes might support life on Titan Oct 14, 2006 Probe peers into Venusian secrets Oct 13, 2006 Bizarre "string of pearls" adorns Saturn Oct 12, 2006 Fresh look at dwarf planet Ceres Oct 11, 2006 Cosmic rays could power icy moon's plumes Oct 10, 2006 Debris strike left hole in shuttle Atlantis Oct 9, 2006 Star Trek sale stuns auctioneers Oct 8, 2006 Mars orbiter looks down on rover Oct 6, 2006 Astronomers complete mighty map Oct 6, 2006 Hubble spots planets whose years hurtle by Oct 5, 2006 Huge 'launch ring' to fling satellites into orbit Oct 4, 2006 Hubble discovers dark cloud in the atmosphere of Uranus Oct 3, 2006 Armstrong 'got Moon quote right' Oct 2, 2006 NASA's new Mars camera gives dramatic view of planet Oct 2, 2006 Solar flares will disrupt GPS in 2011 Oct 1, 2006 Hubble telescope will get upgrade (Oct 31, 2006) NASA chief Mike Griffin says shuttle astronauts will be sent to service the Hubble Space Telescope. The orbiting observatory has astounded astronomers and the public alike with its amazing imagery of the cosmos, but it will soon fail unless serviced. Mr Griffin told NASA employees that recent modifications to the shuttle launch system meant he felt it was now safe to send a crew to work on Hubble. The mission, which has been designated STS-125, should launch in 2008. Read more. Source: BBC Bizarre stellar outburst continues to baffle (Oct 31, 2006) A strange outburst of the star V838 Monocerotis several years ago is continuing to mystify astronomers. A new study backs the idea that it was the result of a collision with another star. When V838 Mon brightened in January 2002, many astronomers thought it was a regular nova – a nuclear explosion on the surface of a dead star called a white dwarf. Such explosions are triggered by the white dwarf stealing matter from a nearby stellar companion. Read more. Source: New Scientist NASA's Spitzer peels back layers of star's explosion (Oct 30, 2006) Astronomers using NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope have discovered that an exploded star, named Cassiopeia A, blew up in a somewhat orderly fashion, retaining much of its original onion-like layering. "Spitzer has essentially found key missing pieces of the Cassiopeia A puzzle," said Jessica Ennis of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, lead author of a paper to appear in the Nov. 20 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. Read more. Source: Spitzer/Caltech NASA to decide Hubble's fate (Oct 29, 2006) NASA is debating whether to send astronauts on a mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Without another servicing call by shuttle astronauts, Hubble is expected to last another two to three years. At the crux of this is whether to risk flying astronauts on the shuttle without the International Space Station available as an emergency shelter. Read more. Source: BBC Soil minerals point to planet-wide ocean on Mars (Oct 27, 2006) An ocean of water once wrapped around Mars, suggests the discovery of soil chemicals by NASA’s rovers. But the same chemicals also indicate that life was not widespread on the planet at the time the ocean was present. Sulphates, which form most readily in liquid water, had already been detected by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The minerals have been interpreted as evidence for past bodies of water on the surface. But it has not been clear how large these bodies of water might have been. Read more. Source: New Scientist Undergrad proposes asteroids as radiation shields (Oct 27, 2006) NASA is funding a study to see if it might be possible to use asteroids traveling between the orbits of Earth and Mars to shelter spacecraft from radiation. The study is the brainchild of Daniella Della-Giustina, engineering physics undergrad – and maybe science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. Della-Giustina is one of five people to receive NASA's Advanced Concepts Student Fellows Prize this year. Read more. Source: Technovelgy Marooned Mars rover returns stunning panorama (Oct 26, 2006) The most detailed panoramic view ever obtained on Mars has been returned by NASA's Spirit rover in time to mark its 1000th Martian day, or sol, on the Red Planet. A total of 1449 individual images representing 500 megabytes of raw data were acquired for the view, called the McMurdo panorama. Read more. Source: New Scientist What are the chances of aliens sniffing us out? (Oct 25, 2006) Beaming signals into space to find ET could potentially be risky for Earth and its inhabitants. So researchers are developing a Richter-like scale to assess the chance that extraterrestrials could detect – and potentially react to – such signals. Decades of passively monitoring microwave frequencies have failed to find any evidence of signals from extraterrestrial civilisations. Frustrated by the long silence, some researchers want to start transmitting signals towards nearby stars with possible habitable planets in a plan called "active SETI". Read more. Source: New Scientist Viking landers may have missed Martian life (Oct 24, 2006) NASA's twin Viking spacecraft may have missed signs of life during their examination of the Martian surface 30 years ago. Researchers now say that the landers’ experiments were not sensitive enough to find life and in any case may not have been able to spot the strange forms that Martian life might take. The results from Vikings’ onboard experiments are confusing because some tests suggested the presence of organisms capable of digesting organic molecules. Read more. Source: New Scientist Introducing: Thunderhawk – first X-Racer officially named (Oct 23, 2006) Its official. The Rocket Racing League announced today that its first Mark-1 X-Racer will be known as the Thunderhawk. The Rocket Racing League (RRL) is an aerospace entertainment organization which combines the competition of racing with the excitement of rocketry. Read more. Source: space.com 1 | 2 | 3 BACK TO TOP

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