Space Science News from NASA HQ 8 Jan 2001
What’s new at http://spacescience.nasa.gov :
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The January meeting of the American Astronomical Society is going on this
week in San Diego. Whenever that happens, there’s always a flurry of press
releases, stories, etc. A couple of the items below are from the AAS; you
can count on lots more over the next few days, and I’ll try to link to the
best ones. Meanwhile, if you are wondering just what the AAS is, check out
http://www.aas.org/
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Astronomers have discovered a glowing bubble of hot gas and an unexpected
X-ray bright central star within the planetary nebula known as the Cat’s
Eye, using our Chandra X-ray Observatory. See the dying sun at
http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/01_releases/press_010801.html
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Other astronomers have discovered evidence for an immense concentration of
galaxies over 6.5 billion light years away, possibly the largest structure
anywhere in the observable universe. The universe at the distance of the
cluster is seen at only about a third of its present age. If the
concentration of galaxies and quasars is caused by a larger than usual
amount of matter in the area, traditional theories of the evolution of the
universe have difficulty explaining how gravity could pull extremely
massive structures together over such a large distance, in such a
relatively short time. ftp://www.gsfc.nasa.gov/pub/PAO/Releases/2001/01-02.htm
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Another team of wild-eyed astronomers
about half the mass of the sun, in the Orion star forming complex, which is
1,400 light years from Earth. The study provides evidence that solar-like
stars can form planets a lot faster than previously
thought. http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/01-01-05-01.all.html
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Then again, a hoard of rampaging astronomers using data from ISO (an
ESA/NASA infrared astronomy mission) have detected a key ingredient for
planet making in the faint disks of matter that surround three nearby
stars: molecular hydrogen. The result implies that the process of making
Jupiter-like planets can occur over LONGER periods than current models
allow. http://www.esa.it/export/esaCP/GGGSMIG80HC_Feature_0.html
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On January 4, the 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft arrived at NASA’s Kennedy
Space Center in Florida, in preparation for launch in April. Hopefully it
will join MGS at Mars in October. News release at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2001/marsodysseyatksc.html , Odyssey at
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/2001/index.html
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An audio clip produced from radio waves that our Cassini spacecraft
detected near Jupiter was described last week as sounding “like a troop of
howler monkeys battling underwater.” If you can handle the 1.9MB download,
you can hear this and another audio clip at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/acoustic/
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In the first step of a two-step process, we have selected three proposals
for detailed study as candidates for the next mission in our Discovery
Program. One mission would search for Earth-like planets around other
stars, another would determine the
internal structure of Jupiter, and the third would study two of the
largest asteroids in the solar system. We also decided to fund American
participation in the French NetLander mission to Mars. More at
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2001/01-001.txt
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We currently have two balloons with science payloads flying over
Antarctica. TopHat is studying the cosmic microwave background, and ATIC is
a prototype of the Calorimeter Instrument for the Advanced Cosmic Ray
Composition Experiment for the Space Station. You can learn about the
science and keep track of their flight paths at
http://192.149.107.13/ice0001.htm
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