Space Science News from NASA HQ 12 Dec 2000
What’s new at http://spacescience.nasa.gov :
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Astronomers have found four more small moons around Saturn, bringing the
number found since October to ten, for a total of 28. These are really
small rocks that Saturn probably captured. Story at
http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0012/10saturnmoons/
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A new deep sea hydrothermal vent field, which scientists have dubbed “The
Lost City,” was discovered December 5th on an undersea mountain in the
Atlantic Ocean. This one is interesting because the chemistry is different
than other known vents, and there are none of those large, strange life
forms like tube worms and blind crabs that other vents have. NSF press
release at http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/00/pr0093.htm
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Astronomers using an Australian telescope have found three more planets
around distant stars. There’s about 50 exoplanets known now; how many
billions more out there? Worlds from Down Under at
http://www.aao.gov.au/press/aatplanets_dec00.html
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Three high school students, using data from our Chandra X-ray Observatory
and the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array (VLA), have won
first place in the Siemens-Westinghouse Science and Technology Competition,
based on their discovery of the first evidence of a neutron star in the
nearby supernova remnant IC443. High energy kids at
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-195.txt
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We successfully contacted Pioneer 6 on December 8, 35 years after our
oldest working spacecraft was launched into solar orbit on what was to have
been a six-month mission. Still ticking at
http://www.space.com/news/spaceagencies/pioneer_6_contact_001209.html
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NEAR’s long-distance orbit around Eros ended Dec. 7 with an engine burst
that moved the spacecraft several miles closer to the rotating asteroid,
heading for a 35-kilometer high orbit on December 13, where it will stay
until January. In February, NEAR’s mission will end, when the plan is to
“land” on the asteroid. Crunch. You can follow developments at
http://near.jhuapl.edu/ , and sign up there for daily e-mail news if you like.
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Don’t forget, Cassini is now conducting joint science operations with
Galileo at Jupiter. Cassini’s closest approach to the planet comes on
December 30. They’ve been putting out “gee wiz” pics and movies at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/jupiterflyby/
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Cool Site of the Week: watch a short movie (real data!) of the stars in the
center of our Milky Way galaxy, orbiting the black hole that sits
there. See what a million solar masses can do at
http://www.mpe-garching.mpg.de/www_ir/GC/prop.html
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