Space Science News from NASA HQ 22 September 2000
Greetings!
Findings from our Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission – appearing
in a special section of the Sept. 22 issue of the journal Science – confirm
that asteroid 433 Eros is a consolidated, primitive sample from the solar
system’s beginnings. In other words, Eros is not a loose pile of rubble,
and it has been around for 4.5 billion years. There are lots of other
interesting findings; the four scientific papers published in Science
represent the largest one-time release of scientific data about Eros since
the mission began. For more details, see:
the main press release: http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/articles/00sep21/
results from the X-ray Gamma-Ray Spectrometer team:
ftp://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/PAO/Releases/2000/00-118.htm
results from the Radio Science team:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/eros2000.html
results from the multi-spectral imager and infrared spectrometer team:
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Sept00/Veverka.Eros.deb.html
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Time-lapse movies made from a series of pictures taken by the Hubble Space
Telescope are showing that young stars and their surroundings can change
dramatically in just weeks or months.
http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/PR/2000/32/index.html
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Unfortunately, it appears that the highly successful Japanese/U.S. ASCA
mission is probably over. Japan launched the x-ray astronomy mission in
1993, with some of our hardware on it, and it has provided a lot of great
science. It was expected to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere next year, but
it got knocked out of action by a solar storm in July, and efforts to
recover it have failed. http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/asca/safemode.html
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The European Space Agency is nearing the selection of its future missions.
We expect to be cooperating with them on many of their coming adventures.
You can learn more about what they have in mind for the next 10+ years at
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=24601
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Astronomers have pinpointed with unprecedented accuracy an immense black
hole with a mass of more than 2 million suns at the center of our Milky Way
galaxy. Yup, it’s Sagittarius A, nailed down to a gnat’s eyelash.
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/09/21/black.hole.ap/index.html
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Intense ultraviolet radiation that pierces Mars’ thin atmosphere produces
an abundance of oxygen ions at the Martian surface that destroys organic
molecules – – the building blocks of life — according to researchers at
JPL. Sure makes you glad that we still have an ozone layer around Earth,
eh? http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/soilmars.html
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Triggered by alerts from amateur astronomers worldwide, our Chandra X-Ray
Observatory has been observing the outburst of the brightest northern dwarf
nova SS Cygni. Cataclysmic variable go BOOM!
http://chandra.harvard.edu/chronicle/0300/aavso.html
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Finally, the Web Site of the Week: on just about any clear night, you can
go outside, look up, and see satellites in Earth orbit, zipping across the
sky. But it helps if you know where to look. One good site for satellite
tracking predictions is Heavens-Above at http://www.heavens-above.com .
Try it, it’s fun!
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Cheers!
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