ASTRO - SPACE NEWS: A Division Of Astronomy Media Services

  ASTRO - SPACE NEWS 



                      


         Space & Astronomy News
   from around the World each Week


Here are a selection of Astronomy/Space related stories you may find interesting. Bookmark this page, keep the link that got you here OR let me know your email address and I'll send a copy to you each week. Your details are confidential - I won't disclose your address to anyone!


For the media: If you are interested, an interview with astronomer, public lecturer and News Editor of Sky and Space Magazine Dave Reneke,('Astro-Dave') can be arranged at any time by Phone/Fax(02) 65 85 2260  Mobile: 0400 636 363  or email dave for an instant reply to Dave.Reneke@SkyandSpace.com.au

David is well experienced talking to the media and presents information in an easy to understand, up to date and informative manner.

Feel free to forward this e-mail to your friends/colleagues for their use. There is no cost and no obligation for this service. Anyone can subscribe by sending the word 'SUBSCRIBE' in the subject line to me at:  Dave.Reneke@SkyandSpace.com.au
            Issue: 17 December 2007


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 NEW ISSUE - Sky and Space Magazine in newsagents NOW

Sky and Space produces this great magazine for all those interested in astronomy and space exploration. Sky and Space Magazine is the Southern Hemisphere's only popular-level magazine of astronomy and space exploration. 

Published every second month, Sky and Space has 100 pages packed full of fascinating, easy-to-read articles and spectacular astrophotography. Sky and Space is essential reading for everyone with a thirst for knowledge about our incredible cosmos.

The new issue has been available on news-stands from Friday October 12 in NSW. Tons of great stories, and amazing photos.  Subscribe to the 'new look' Sky and Space Magazine.

                                                           In this issue:

*  We reveal the southern skies like never before by a talented NSW astro-photographer "   

*  We give you a 'primer' for taking your own 'Astro photos'  

*  A special feature on 50 years of spaceflight - How far have we come?

*  We take a look at the hotspot for astronomy - our capital Canberra "   

*  Is Mars a 'mission impossible?"

*  A big feature on a star party at Arkaroola…where's that?  Take a look…and there's much, much more!

Check out our contents page
   
Hey - Why not check out our web page as well? www.skyandspace.com.au If you know of any events, star parties or anything happening, astronomically, or would like to suggest a link, please email us at info@SkyandSpace.com.au

The Sky and Space Shop is situated at 23 Bronte Road in Bondi Junction, Sydney (Australia).  Why don't you drop in for a chat and a look around at the wonderful assortment of books, posters and all things astronomical.  We'd love to see you.


    'DEAR DAVE' 

Reader Feedback:

Your feedback invited...



Hi Dave

Are you going to continue running your newsletter into the New Year?  I hope you do.

All the best for Xmas etc.

Steven Morris (Aust).

Yes Steve Sure will.  In fact soon we'll be going over to the full blown thing via my association with Sky and Space magazine.  This will mean a new website, heaps of offers, tons more news etc.  so hang in there.  Best wishes also for 'Chrissie' 2007.


Please note: This is the last edition of Astro Space News until the New Year.  We hope to be back in the second week in January but short news releases will be sent in the interim as news breaks.

Merry everything to all.  Thanks for your support throughout 2007.


Prehistoric beasts peppered from space

Startling evidence has been found which shows mammoths and other great beasts from the last ice age were blasted with material that came from space.  Eight tusks dating to some 35,000 years ago all show signs of having being peppered with meteorite fragments.

The ancient remains come from Alaska, but researchers also have a Siberian bison skull with the same pockmarks.
They painted a picture of a calamitous event over North America that may have severely knocked back the populations of some species.

"We think that there was probably an impact which exploded in the air that sent these particles flying into the animals," said Richard Firestone from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The mammoth and bison remains all display small (about 2-3mm in size) perforations.  Viewed under an electron microscope, the embedded fragments appear to have exploded inside the tusk and bone, say the researchers.

The embedded particles have a high iron-nickel content Neither proposed impact can yet be tied definitively to any craters - if there ever were any.  The team also needs to explain how the bison and mammoth remains can show similar damage when they were widely separated geographically.

The intriguing question is how space impacts might fit into the extinction story of the ice age beasts.  The mammoth, their elephant cousins the mastodon, sabre-toothed tigers, some bears, and many other creatures all disappeared rapidly from the palaeo-record about 10,000 years ago.

BBC News

Voyager 2 proves solar system is squashed

NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft has followed its twin Voyager 1 into the solar system's final frontier, a vast region at the edge of our solar system where the solar wind runs up against the thin gas between the stars.

Voyager 2 took a different path, entering this region, called the heliosheath, on August 30, 2007.  It confirmed that our solar system is "squashed" or "dented"- that the bubble carved into interstellar space by the solar wind is not perfectly round.  Where Voyager 2 made its crossing, the bubble is pushed in closer to the sun by the local interstellar magnetic field.

"Voyager 2 continues its journey of discovery, crossing the termination shock multiple times as it entered the outermost layer of the giant heliospheric bubble surrounding the Sun and joined Voyager 1 in the last leg of the race to interstellar space." said Voyager Project Scientist Dr.  Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California.

The solar wind is a thin gas of electrically charged particles (plasma) blown into space by the sun.  The solar wind blows in all directions, carving a bubble into interstellar space that extends past the orbit of Pluto.

This bubble is called the heliosphere where the solar wind is abruptly slowed by pressure from the gas and magnetic field in interstellar space.

NASA

Group plans strategy for Mars sample return mission

NASA and an international team are developing plans and seeking recommendations to launch the first Mars mission to bring soil samples back to Earth.  The ability to study soil from Mars here on Earth will contribute significantly to answering questions about the possibility of life on the Red Planet.

Returned samples also will increase understanding of the useful or harmful properties of Martian soil, which will support planning for the eventual human exploration of Mars.

A task force named the International Mars Architecture for Return of Samples, or IMARS, recently met in Washington to lay the foundation for an international collaboration to return samples from Mars.  NASA hosted the meeting.

For Europe this is a major step to shape the future of the ESA Aurora Exploration Programme in 2008.  The Aurora Programme is part of Europe's strategy for space, initiated by ESA in 2001 to create and implement a long-term European plan for robotic and human exploration of the solar system.

NASA

Mars rover races to survive

The Martian rover Spirit is now in the race of its life.  The Mars rover Spirit is racing against time to reach a resting spot for the winter after a giant dust storm drained much of its energy, scientists said Monday. 

Spirit has until Christmas to drive to the sunny slope of a low plateau where it will park itself with its solar panels pointed at the sun and bunker down for the winter.

Earth scientists hope that Spirit can reach a slope on the northern edge of the unusual feature dubbed Home Plate, before the end of this month when northern winter will be phasing in on Mars.

Reaching this slope will likely allow the rover to tilt enough toward the Sun to create a needed increase in the efficiency of its energy-absorbing solar panels.

"It's scramble right now because we're losing sunlight," said rover project manager John Callas of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the mission.

Spirit and its twin rover Opportunity faced their biggest challenge yet this summer when a series of dust devils blanketed their solar panels and limited their movement.  Winds managed to clean off Opportunity, but Spirit is still covered in gunk and working at 42 percent capacity.

Callas predicted further dust accumulation could cause Spirit's solar array performance to drop to 30 percent by the winter.

Associated Press.

And you wonder why we have a problem…

Astrology is claimed to be a perfect science like astronomy, and that's the reason that it's allowed to be taught in Indian Universities for degrees and research work for interested students.

The Honourable Indian Supreme Court recently rejected the plea of scientists that Astrology should not be taught in Universities as a subject of science.  The Full Bench accepted Astrology as Science and allowed the Universities for teaching and issuing degrees and research work in Astrology.

In a landmark judgement, a full bench dismissed a petition filed by scientists challenging an Andhra Pradesh High Court Order that Astrology is not science and should not be taught in the universities.

One Dr.  Raj Baldev, while tracing the ancient history of Astronomy and Astrology, gave all scientific reasons in his intervention application justifying how astrology is a complete science.

Dr.  Raj Baldev is also known as Nostradamus of India and is also popular as 'swami' due to his vision of analysing both astronomy and astrology outstandingly.  He has the privilege of having the audience of many heads of States including, among others, Prince Charles.  (Nuff said?  Ed.)

His predictions are so accurate, it is claimed, that even his 1999 predictions were carried by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and proudly released by them on Internet since they were remarkably perfect and is still applicable.

Oh, by the way … Dr.  Raj Baldev was consulted regularly by Saddam Hussein and his close deputies before their dramatic fall from power which, it seems, the good swami inadvertently missed foreseeing!  (Ed)

International Reporter

Saturn's rings may be old as solar system

Although the Solar System is 4.5 billion years old, planetary scientists thought that Saturn's famous rings formed much later.  Maybe as recently as a few hundred million years ago.  But new observations from Cassini have pushed those estimate back… way back.  Maybe all the way back to the beginning of the Solar System.

Saturn's rings might be ancient, with ring material getting recycled for eons.

According to Larry Esposito, principal investigator for the latest Saturn Cassini mission, earlier data gathered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in the 1970s, and later from the Hubble Space Telescope indicated that the rings were young.  Maybe a comet shattered one of Saturn's moons about 100 million years ago, generating the particles we see today.

But the new evidence from Cassini shows the rings vary in age significantly; the rings are being constantly replenished and recycled.

"The evidence is consistent with the picture that Saturn has had rings all through its history," said Esposito.  "We see extensive, rapid recycling of ring material, in which moons are continually shattered into ring particles, which then gather together and re-form moons."

"We have discovered that the rings probably were not created just yesterday in cosmic time, and in this scenario, it is not just luck that we are seeing planetary rings now," said Esposito.  "They probably were always around but continually changing, and they will be around for many billions of years."

So how can Cassini tell that there's new material being generated?  Astronomers used to think that in-falling meteoric dust should pollute the older rings, making them darker.  But the new Cassini observations show that the ring system spreads the pollution around, diluting it.  This is why the rings appear to be so pristine and young.

They observed how the ring material blocked light from distant stars.  They were able to detect 13 objects in Saturn's F ring, varying in size from 27 metres to 10 kilometres.  Since most of the objects are translucent, the researchers think they're just temporary clumps of icy boulders.

They appear to come and go, clinging together and then breaking apart under Saturn's strong gravity.  Although the rings always look the same, they're being constantly recycled.

NASA

 'Giant spider eats space shuttle' - December 12, 2007

A moment of levity during NASA's frustrating attempts to launch Atlantis - a spider crawling on the lens of one of its cameras appears as a monstrous, shuttle eating beast.


British paper Metro has the real scoop though: "experts viewing the footage suggest that it is a clear indicator that the Earth is about to be plunged into an all-out space war with a race of 150ft-long demonic spiders who live on rocket fuel".

Watch the full video and make up your own mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSI5jIY0Zk4

Earth has at least 4 moons

Okay - that is not actually true - but it is very close.

In 1986, Duncan Waldron discovered a asteroid (5km across) that is in an elliptic orbit around the sun with a period of revolution virtually identical to that of Earth.  For this reason the planetoid and earth appear to be following each other.

The periodic planetoid is named Cruithne (pronounced krin-y?) after an ancient group of Scottish people (also known as the Picts).  Because of its unusual relationship with Earth, it is sometimes referred to as Earth's second moon.

Cruithne is fainter than Pluto and would require at least a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope to attempt to be seen.  Since its discovery, at least three other similar asteroids have been discovered.  These types of objects are also found in similar relationships to other planets in our Solar System.

Sunspot activity may have made Stradivarius violins sound so beautiful

Antonio Stradivari is considered to be the greatest violin maker ever.  He lived in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Scientists have been unable to work out what it is about his violins that makes them so incredible, but they do know that the timber used to make them is a very important contributing factor.

From the 1500s to 1800s, the earth underwent a little ice age mostly due to increased volcanic activity and decreased solar activity (this is called the Maunder Minimum).  As a result of this cooling, the types of trees that Stradivari used for his violins were particularly hard (due to slow growth).

Hard timber is especially good when making violins.  It is very probable that had Stradivari lived in a different age, his violins would not be prized as they are today.

Fact:

We are moving through space at the rate of 530km a second Our Galaxy - the Milky Way is spinning at a rate of 225 kilometres per second.

In addition, the galaxy is travelling through space at the rate of 305 kilometres per second.  This means that we are travelling at a total speed of 530 kilometres per second.

That means that in one minute you are about 19 thousand kilometres away from where you were.  Scientists do not all agree on the speed with which the Milky Way is travelling - estimates range from 130 - 1,000 km/s.



Shuttle target launch date moved to January 10

Launch of shuttle Atlantis on a critical space station assembly mission, delayed twice because of problems with troublesome low-level fuel sensors.

It will slip an additional week, from Jan.  2 to no earlier than Jan.10, to give support personnel time off over the Christmas and New Year holidays, NASA managers said today.




 

==== IN THE SKY THIS WEEK ===


The First Quarter Moon is Monday December 17.  The early evening sky is now devoid of bright planets.  Red Mars rises around 10:00 am, and can be seen as the brightest object above the north-eastern horizon at midnight.  If you wait long enough, Saturn and brilliant white Venus will rise above the eastern horizon for the perfect finish to a warm summer's night.

* Remember: While the stars and planets rise about 4 minutes earlier every night, the Moon rises about 50 minutes later each night.

* Each month the planets and stars rise 2 hours earlier than the previous month.

http://home.mira.net/~reynella/skywatch/ssky.htm




1 Nearly every astronaut experiences some space sickness, caused by the wildly confusing information reaching their inner ears.  In addition to nausea, symptoms include headaches and trouble locating your own limbs.  Just like college, really.

2 And those are the least of your worries.  In weightlessness, fluids shift upward, causing nasal congestion and a puffy face; bones lose calcium, forming kidney stones; and muscles atrophy, slowing the bowels and shrinking the heart.

3 At least you'll be puffy, constipated, and tall: The decreased pressure on the spine in zero-g causes most space travellers to grow about two inches.

4 Lab rats sent into space during mid-pregnancy, while their foetuses' inner ears are developing, spawn some seriously tipsy babies.

5 No humans have yet been conceived in space, so we can only imagine.

6 So that's what it takes: A 2001 study showed that astronauts who snored on Earth snoozed silently in space.

7 But astronauts sleep less soundly; 16 sunrises a day throws a major wrench into their circadian rhythms.

8 And Ziggy played guitar.  At the start of the workday on the space shuttle, mission control in Houston broadcasts wake-up music, usually selected with a particular astronaut in mind.  On the all-work, no-play International Space Station, crews wake to an alarm clock.

9 If you are ever exposed to the vacuum of space without a suit on, don't hold your breath: Sudden decompression would cause your lungs to rupture.

10 In addition, water on the tongue, in the nose, and in the eyes would boil away.  This actually happened in 1965, when a space suit failed during a NASA experiment and the tester was exposed to a near vacuum for 15 seconds.

11 Contrary to Hollywood, though, you wouldn't explode.  Lack of oxygen in the blood is what would kill you, but it would take about two minutes.

12 John Glenn found it hard to choke down his food, but not because of the lack of gravity: Early astronauts relied on aluminium tubes of semiliquid mush, food cubes, and dehydrated meals.

13 Today astronauts can spice up their meals with salt and pepper-in liquid form.  Sprinkled grains would float away, tickling noses and clogging vents.

14 Missing something?  Those vents on the space shuttle and International Space Station serve as the lost and found, sucking up anything that's floating about unsecured.

15 The shuttle commode requires that astronauts align themselves precisely in the dead centre of the seat.  A mock-up of the shuttle toilet, complete with built-in camera, is used to train them how to position themselves.

16 NASA tried building a bathroom into its space suits-a fitted condom attached to a bladder for men, a moulded gynaecological insert for women-but gave up and passed out nappies (diapers) to all.

17 Returning astronauts report extreme difficulty moving their arms and legs right after touchdown, one reason why they call landing "the second birth."

18 But some long-duration cosmonauts report that the hardest thing to readjust to about life on Earth is that when you let go of objects, they fall.

19 Better just to stay up there?  Eighteen people have died on space missions, but never in space-always on the way up or the way down.



PIC OF THE WEEK  

Mountains of Creation

This fantastic skyscape lies at the eastern edge of giant stellar nursery W5, about 7,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia.  An infrared view from the Spitzer Space Telescope, it features interstellar clouds of cold gas and dust sculpted by winds and radiation from a hot, massive star outside the picture (just above and to the right).

Still swaddled within the cosmic clouds, newborn stars are revealed by Spitzer's penetrating gaze, their formation also triggered by the massive star.  Fittingly dubbed "Mountains of Creation", these interstellar clouds are about 10 times the size of the analogous Pillars of Creation in M16, made famous in a 1995 Hubble Space Telescope view.

W5 is also known as IC 1848 and together with IC 1805 it is part of a complex region popularly dubbed the Heart and Soul Nebulae.  The Spitzer image spans about 70 light-years at the distance of W5.

Credit: Lori Allen (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA) et al., JPL-Caltech, NASA


ASTRO QUIZ


How did you go with our question last week: How long is the longest a solar eclipse can last for?  Answer: 7 Minutes, 40 seconds.

This week's question: Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's space-tourism company, reportedly considered barring women with breast implants.  Why?

2009 - THE INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ASTRONOMY

2009 will be a global celebration of astronomy and its contributions to society and culture, stimulating worldwide interest not only in astronomy, but in science in general, with a particular slant towards young people.

The International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) will mark the monumental leap forward that followed Galileo's first use of the telescope for astronomical observations, and portray astronomy as a peaceful global scientific endeavour that unites astronomers in an international, multicultural family of scientists working together to find answers to some of the most fundamental questions that humankind has ever asked.

IYA2009 is, first and foremost, an activity for the citizens of Planet Earth.  It aims to convey the excitement of personal discovery, the pleasure of sharing fundamental knowledge about the Universe and our place in it and the value of the scientific culture.

Sky and Space is the Southern Hemisphere's only popular-level magazine of astronomy and space exploration and will be playing an active part in the momentous celebration.


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