WHAT'S NEW?
Children's Encyclopedia of Science
DAVID'S BOOKS
• Learn more
• Learn more
• Learn more
• Learn more
• Learn more
• Sample chapters
• Spanish
• Learn more
• Learn about
• Learn about
• Read whole book
• Spanish
• Read whole book
• Spanish
• Read whole book
• Spanish
|
LATEST SPACE & SCIENCE NEWS
Archeo- | Eco- | Health | Living world
Paleo- | Robot diaries | Strange news | Tech-
 Ariane lofts biggest 'space bird'
(Jul 2, 2009) The world's biggest commercial telecommunications satellite has been put into orbit by an Ariane 5 rocket. The TerreStar-1 platform weighed just shy of seven tonnes at launch. Built for TerreStar Networks, the spacecraft will provide voice, messaging and data connections to the North American market.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 X-rays are smoking gun for middle-weight black holes
(Jul 1, 2009) The black hole family has a middle child, if an otherwise unexplained source of fluctuating X-rays is anything to go by. Small black holes the size of stars and the supermassive variety are familiar, but until now there have only been tentative signs of intermediate-mass black holes.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Light goes out on solar mission
(Jul 1, 2009) After more than 18 years studying the Sun, the plug has finally been pulled on the ailing spacecraft Ulysses. Final communication with the joint European-US satellite took place on 30 June. The long-serving craft, launched in October 1990, had already served four times its expected design life.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 In search of NASA's next rocket
(Jun 30, 2009) The Ares I rocket, linchpin of NASA's plan to replace the Space Shuttle fleet with a new generation of manned space vehicles, has been beset by technical problems. In this New Scientist gallery, five alternative launch systems are highlighted – rockets that are now being seriously considered as alternatives to the beleaguered Ares.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Joint Mars plan on talks agenda
(Jun 30, 2009) The US and European space agencies are to discuss the potential for mounting joint missions to Mars during a summit underway in Plymouth, UK. NASA's science chief Ed Weiler told BBC News that co-operation made sense given the agencies' shared science goals and the growing expense of such ventures. America is now likely to play a major role in Europe's 2016 ExoMars mission.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Sun leaves Earth wide open to cosmic rays
(Jun 29, 2009) The sun provides ideal conditions for life to thrive, right? In fact, it periodically leaves Earth open to assaults from interstellar nasties in a way that most stars do not.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Milky Way's super-efficient particle accelerators caught in the act
(Jun 28, 2009) Thanks to a unique "ballistic study" that combines data on the supernova remnant RCW 86 from ESO's Very Large Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have now solved a long-standing mystery of the Milky Way’s particle accelerators. They show in a paper published on June 25 Science Express that cosmic rays from our galaxy are very efficiently accelerated in the remnants of exploded stars.
Read more. Source: European Southern Observatory |
 Solar X-rays may create DNA building blocks on Titan
(Jun 27, 2009) Blasting the atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan with X-rays can produce a base component of DNA, a new laboratory study suggests. While the effect may only occur periodically, when meteoroid impacts deliver water to the moon's surface, the finding adds to evidence that Titan may be ripe for life.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Space shuttle exhaust hints comet caused Tunguska blast
(Jun 26, 2009) Was the Tunguska explosion of 1908 caused by a comet hitting Earth? That's the claim of a new study based on the behaviour of water vapour from the space shuttle's exhaust. But other scientists dispute the claim, and say the evidence still points to a stony meteoroid as the culprit.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Gluttonous black holes power ancient cosmic 'blobs'
(Jun 25, 2009) Mysterious blobs of gas dotting the early universe – Lyman-alpha blobs – seem to be lit by ravenous black holes at the hearts of massive galaxies, a new study suggests. Further study of the strange clouds could reveal how young galaxies regulate their meals to become the galaxies we see today.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 'Misty caverns' on Enceladus moon
(Jun 25, 2009) NASA's Cassini spacecraft has obtained strong evidence that Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus retains liquid water. The probe has detected sodium salts in the vicinity of the satellite, which appear to spew from its south pole. Liquid water that is in prolonged contact with rock will leach out sodium – in exactly the same way as Earth's oceans have become salty over time.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Huge stellar nursery found in dusty corner of our galaxy
(Jun 24, 2009) A vast stellar nursery 14,000 light years away has been hiding behind a thick cloud of dust. It is one of the biggest in our galaxy, and may offer insight into how these objects can grow so big. The stellar nursery, called CTB 102, is home to perhaps thousands of newborn stars.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 NASA scientists bring light to Moon's permanently dark craters
(Jun 23, 2009) A new lunar topography map with the highest resolution of the Moon's rugged south polar region provides new information on some of our natural satellite's darkest inhabitants — permanently shadowed craters. The map was created by scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who collected the data using the Deep Space Network's Goldstone Solar System Radar located in California's Mojave Desert.
Read more. Source: NASA/JPL |
 Europe to study freighter upgrade
(Jun 22, 2009) The European Space Agency is about to look in detail at how it might upgrade its space station freighter so it can return cargo safely to Earth. At the moment, the Automated Transfer Vehicle is discarded after delivering supplies to the orbiting platform. The agency will ask industry in the coming weeks to define the requirements for a far more capable ship.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Work starts on New Mexico spaceport
(Jun 21, 2009) Ground has been broken on the construction site of Spaceport America, the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport. Those behind the project say that it will help provide a new chapter in space exploration. When finished in 18 months' time, the facility will house Virgin Galactic's space tourism business and other firms working in the commercial space arena.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Herschel gives glimpse of power
(Jun 20, 2009) Europe's new Herschel Space Observatory has provided a demonstration of its capability with a first image of the iconic Whirlpool Galaxy. The billion-euro telescope opened its "eyes" to the cosmos last Sunday when a command was given to lift a protective hatch covering the instrument bay. Herschel spied the galaxy, also known as M51, with its Photoconductor Array Camera and Spectrometer.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Doubts grow about NASA moon return
(Jun 19, 2009) A senior NASA official expressed doubt on Wednesday that the agency could send astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit without extra money or using vehicles radically different form those it is currently working on. NASA's space shuttle program manager John Shannon made the remarks in a presentation to a committee reviewing NASA's human spaceflight plans at the request of the White House and chaired by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Lift off for NASA's lunar probes
(Jun 18, 2009) NASA has successfully launched two spacecraft to the Moon on missions that will pave the way for a return to the lunar surface by US astronauts. LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) and a crater observation mission blasted off from Florida on an Atlas V rocket. Data gathered by LRO will help mission planners select future landing sites and scout locations for lunar outposts.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Solar system's most volcanic body to go dormant
(Jun 18, 2009) The most volcanically active body in the solar system has just received a death sentence. Jupiter's moon Io, whose surface erupts with active volcanoes, will one day become dormant, a new study analysing more than 100 years of observations suggests.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 High-speed 'wedge' for re-entry
(Jun 17, 2009) A contract has been signed at the Paris air show that will lead to the development of a remarkable spacecraft to test re-entry technologies. Thales Alenia Space in Italy has been given the authorisation to build the wedge-shaped Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle (IXV). The European Space Agency (Esa) demonstrator will be launched in 2012.
Read more. Source: BBC |
 Physicists create 'black hole for sound'
(Jun 17, 2009) An artificial black hole that traps sound instead of light has been created in an attempt to detect theoretical Hawking radiation. The radiation, proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking more than 30 years ago, causes black holes to evaporate over time.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Magic carpets hide objects in plain sight
(Jun 16, 2009) The latest twist on invisibility cloaks won't hide Harry Potter in the middle of a room, but it might just let spies conceal microphones under the rug or the wallpaper. So called "carpet cloaks" are the first technology to succeed in hiding objects by deflecting light across a range of wavelengths. Two groups described different cloaks last week at the International Quantum Electronics Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 'Resurrection bug' revived after 120,000 years
(Jun 15, 2009) A tiny bacterium has been coaxed back to life after spending 120,000 years buried three kilometers deep in the Greenland ice sheet. Researchers who found it say it could resemble microbes that may have evolved in ice on other planets. Officially named Herminiimonas glaciei, the bug consists of rods just 0.9 micrometers long and 0.4 micrometers in diameter, about 10 to 50 times smaller than the well-known bacterium, Escherichia coli.
Read more. Source: New Scientist |
 Herschel telescope 'opens eyes'
(Jun 15, 2009) Europe's new billion-euro Herschel Space Observatory, launched in May, has achieved a critical milestone. The telescope has opened the hatch that has been protecting its sensitive instruments from contamination. The procedure allowed light collected by Herschel's giant 3.5m mirror to flood its supercold instrument chamber, or cryostat, for the first time.
Read more. Source: BBC |
RECENT NEWS | ARCHIVED NEWS
|
 |
|
NASA Ames award for excellence in information on astrobiology
|
|
