Status Report

Space Science News from NASA HQ 10-03-2000

By SpaceRef Editor
October 3, 2000
Filed under

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We have created a Space Science Education Resource Directory, an Internet on-ramp to top-quality educational resources produced by NASA’s Space Science Education and Public Outreach programs. The Directory is a convenient way to find NASA space science products for use in classrooms, science museums, planetariums, and other settings. Right now it is linked to internet resources; in the future we hope to be able to offer CD-ROMs, posters, etc. for purchase. Teachers, check it out at http://teachspacescience.stsci.edu

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Giant fountains of fast-moving, multimillion-degree gas seen by TRACE in the outermost atmosphere of the Sun have revealed an important clue to a long-standing mystery — the location of the heating mechanism that makes the corona 1,000 times hotter than the Sun’s visible surface.

press release: ftp://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/PAO/Releases/2000/H00-146.htm pics and more: http://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/GSFC/SpaceSci/sunearth/tracecl.htm

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Astronomers have captured their first-ever glimpse of a blast wave left by a gamma-ray burst from a distant edge of the cosmos. It was just pure luck to have a star in line with it, to focus and magnify the image of the burst. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/gamma_ray_000930.html

More gamma-ray burst news: to avoid a potential conflict with the launch of the Space Shuttle, the launch of our High Energy Transient Explorer has been moved 24 hours, to October 7.

mission pr at ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-160.txt stay tuned at http://space.mit.edu/HETE/

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Radio astronomers have obtained one of the most detailed views ever seen of the central regions of a so-called active galaxy that is ejecting energetic jets of material into space. There’s one of those supermassive black hole puppies in there…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_946000/946677.stm

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An article in the latest issue of the Astrophysical Journal lends support for a controversial theory that rejects the cold dark matter hypothesis central to what most scientists believe about the composition of the Universe. Cosmology marches on at
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/darkmatter-00e.html

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As our next spacecraft to the red planet begins a crucial round of testing in preparations for launch in April, the mission has been given a new name: 2001 Mars Odyssey. Arthur C. Clarke likes it! We seriously need a success with this one.

story: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/01marsodhq.html mission: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/2001/index.html

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Researchers using a sophisticated optical interferometry testbed at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory have achieved the best-ever distance measurement to a Cepheid variable star. These results improve the “cosmic yardstick” used to infer the size and shape of the universe. http://broccoli.caltech.edu/~media/Press_Releases/PR12081.html

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The Department of the Interior is drilling a hole at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA, on the edge of a huge crater. Both agencies are collecting geological data from a “deep impact” 35 million years ago. Ouch! ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-152.txt

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Web site of the Week: there’s an excellent Astrobiology site at http://library.thinkquest.org/C003763/ . It was created by students as part of a web authoring competition, but it strives to be “the web’s premiere educational resource for astrobiology”, and it has some great content.

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SpaceRef staff editor.