Space news digest

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Wed 08/20	Monster magnets support lovely space lace pattern CHICAGO (Reuters) - Giant magnetic tentacles are the force that keeps a lacy pattern of glowing gas filaments in the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 1275 from evaporating in the surrounding hot gas or collapsing under the weight of their own gravity, British astronomers said on Wednesday.
Wed 08/20	Galactic 'spaghetti monster' powered by magnetic fields Long streamers of gas ejected by a galaxy called NGC 1275 can only be held together by magnetic fields, Hubble images suggest
Wed 08/20	NASA releases Orion crash photos Budding astronauts, avert your eyes. NASA has posted photos of a failed test landing (read: crash) of a mock-up of the Orion crew exploration vehicle, part of the Constellation program to replace the shuttle in 2015. [More]
Wed 08/20	Will US-Russia tensions extend to space? International cooperation in human spaceflight may be facing its toughest test since the cold war. The immediate concern: Will US astronauts be able to ride Russian rockets between 2010, when the last shuttle is retired, and 2015, when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to launch a replacement? Russian spacecraft are how NASA plans to send its astronauts to the International Space Station. But with tensions rising over Russia’s invasion of Georgia and a US-Polish missile deal, some lawmakers and space-policy analysts worry that the US Congress – or Russia itself – could scuttle the plan. If tensions fail to ease over the longer term, the space station could shift from an orbiting laboratory to a geopolitical bargaining chip. The possibility that international tensions could limit US access to the space station for at least five years “is a real concern,” says Ray Williamson, an analyst with the Secure World Foundation, a space-policy think tank in Superior, Colo. But the notion that the US needs an alternative right away is a bit premature, he adds. Proposals range from extending the shuttle program beyond 2010 to cutting a deal with China, which is ramping up its own human spaceflight effort. Each option faces big budgetary or political challenges. Already, Bush administration officials reportedly have suggested that the full range of US-Russian ties need to be reviewed in light of Moscow’s actions in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Those tensions appeared to have risen another notch Wednesday when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski inked a deal under which the US would install antiballistic missiles in northeastern Poland. For the US, the challenge lies in the way the Bush administration crafted its 2004 vision for space exploration. It called for an end to the shuttle program in 2010 and the launch of a replacement, the Ares I and its Orion capsule, by 2015. NASA is working on the Ares I system, along with other major components of its Constellation program, with that deadline firmly in mind. Constellation aims to return humans to the moon by 2020. But that schedule leaves at least a five-year gap with no homegrown way to send astronauts to the space station. The US endured a nearly six-year gap in human spaceflight between the Apollo and shuttle programs. But this time around, the US has a destination in orbit that it has paid big money to build and maintain. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has called the gap and the need for Russia’s help “unseemly.” To try to narrow the gap, the agency initially set an internal target for launching Ares 1 with its Orion crew capsule in September 2013. But with more-refined cost estimates in hand, and based on an assumption of no new money likely from Congress to support a 2013 deadline, the agency has moved that internal date to September 2014. “The space community has been trying to yell about this for years, but people didn’t pay a lot of attention,” says George Whitesides, executive director of the National Space Society, a space-exploration advocacy group in Washington. “The biggest lesson we should have learned” from the shift from Apollo to the shuttle “is the need to think through the transition between vehicles without gaps.” The first signals about the future may well come from Congress, which is weighing whether to grant NASA a waiver this year from the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Non-Proliferation Act. It did so in 2005 so that NASA could buy astronaut launch services from Russia through 2011. NASA officials have said they need to place their order soon given the lead time the Russians say they to build the new Soyuz capsules NASA would need. Short of holding its nose and granting the waiver, Congress appears to have few options. The US could try to play a China card, notes Vincent Sabathier, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official with the French space agency CNES. In an online commentary last week, he noted that China doesn’t represent an immediate solution. But Chinese space officials have expressed an interest in participating in the space-station program, he notes. And tighter links between the US and Chinese space programs could represent important confidence-building measures affecting other areas of US-Chinese ties. But such a move would require a profound change in US policy that would be a tough sell, especially at this point in the US political cycle, according to Joan Johnson-Freese, a specialist in international space policy who heads the department of national-security studies at the US Naval War College in Newport, R.I. Thus, if Congress turns its back on a waiver for NASA , “that leaves us in a situation of keeping the shuttle on line,” she says. “Then we’re eating our seed corn once again.” The reason: Unless a new president and Congress give NASA enough money to extend the shuttle program – which already is winding down and likely would require a costly recertification of the remaining shuttles – cash to keep the shuttles running probably would come from money NASA plans to spend on the Constellation program. At the end of the day, “Congress will act pragmatically” and grant the waiver, predicts Peggy Finarelli, a senior fellow at the Center for Aerospace Policy Research at George Mason University in Fairfax., Va. While US-Russian relations appear to be growing more rocky, she doesn’t anticipate the space station becoming a bargaining chip for either country. Hearkening back to the Carter administration’s response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and its cancellation of science and technology exchanges in protest, she says that the White House could make that move then because “there was nothing there where you had multibillion-dollar programs where you had invested a lot of your future.” Moreover, over the past 10 to 15 years, the two countries’ space programs and even their space-launch industries have become tightly intertwined. “These relations are not so easy to damage,” says Mr. Whitesides. That, he says, gives some cause for hope that the space station will remain a symbol of international cooperation in space, despite sometimes rocky relations between partners on Earth.
Wed 08/20	What's the Buzz: A Conversation With Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, talks about solar energy, buses between the planets, the Constellation program, his time on the moon and his new animated movie, Fly Me To The Moon. Plus we&os;ll test your knowledge of some recent science in the news. Websites mentioned in this episode include www.snipurl.com/aldrin; www.sciamdigital.com; www.flymetothemoonthemovie.com [More]
Wed 08/20	NASA's moon rockets will sport shocks to smooth out bumpy ride A space-age version of the rusty springs under old pickups will help NASA fix the most pressing technical problem with its high-tech new rocket to send astronauts back to the moon.
Tue 08/19	NASA fixes moonship shaking with shock absorbers WASHINGTON (AP) -- A space-age version of the rusty springs under old pickup trucks will help NASA fix the most pressing technical problem with its high-tech new rocket to send astronauts back to the moon....
Tue 08/19	Shock absorbers to quell NASA rocket's vibrations Astronauts on NASA's future Ares I rocket should get a smooth ride to space thanks to a two-tiered system of shock-absorbing springs
Tue 08/19	How NASA plans to quell Ares 1 rocket vibrations The last thing you want on a flight to the moon is a headache. [More]
Tue 08/19	NASA to announce GLAST's new name If you took a stab at renaming NASA's gamma-ray telescope earlier this year, now's your chance to see whether the agency took your suggestion seriously. After asking the public to suggest a new name for GLAST, NASA is set to...
Tue 08/19	A thermostat for mini-spacecraft A new technology has been demonstrated that can regulate the temperature of miniature satellites and spacecraft
Mon 08/18	Obama Suggests $2 Billion In New Funding for NASA Sen. Barack Obama has detailed a comprehensive space plan that includes $2 billion in new funding to reinvigorate NASA and a promise to make space exploration and science a significantly higher priority if he is elected president.
Mon 08/18	Pursuing a Crucial Cosmic Number Astronomers have made the most precise measurements yet of the Hubble constant, which measures how fast the universe is growing.
Mon 08/18	SPACE PHOTOS THIS WEEK: Saturn Moon, Mars "Lava," More See a volcano spew from space, hints of Martian lava flows, a Saturn moon's icy fissures, and more in our weekly roundup.
Mon 08/18	New "Minor Planet" Found in Solar System The object, which resembles a tailless comet, traces a long, elliptical orbit around the sun on a round-trip journey lasting about 22,500 years, astronomers report.
Mon 08/18	NASA contractors battling it out over space suits, shuttle The battle for juicy NASA contracts is heating up as the space shuttle nears retirement in 2010 and work continues on the Constellation program to replace it. [More]
Mon 08/18	Cassini spots source of geysers on Saturn moon The vents from which icy geysers erupt on Enceladus are revealed in new images – the vents' position changes over time
Mon 08/18	Milky Way's halo loaded with star streams A new map of the halo of stars that surrounds our Milky Way Galaxy has revealed a complicated structure of crisscrossing stellar streams, many of which have never been detected before.
Mon 08/18	Huge comet-like object takes 22,500-year journey around the sun A huge comet-like object has been spotted inside the orbit of Neptune. The object, at least 30 miles wide, is on the return leg of a 22,500-year journey around the sun, astronomers announced today.
Mon 08/18	The Web Ushers In New Weapons of War and Terrorism In the early days of the Internet, optimists projected that it would usher in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity. Maybe this will happen yet, but currently the net is proving to be a powerful tool in the hands of criminals and terrorists. On top of the rising number of globally based online thieves bent on stealing our identities and money, a growing cadre of state and nonstate actors are adding Internet weapons to their traditional arsenals that can be unleashed in cyber attacks. The appropriation of cyber weapons emerged in the 1980&os;s when hackers began using computer viruses and worms as platforms of protest. One of the most damaging attacks was the infection of NASA&os;s computer network with the WANK (Worms Against Nuclear Killers) worm in 1989. At the time of the attack, antinuclear activists were protesting the launch of a space shuttle that carried the Galileo spacecraft--the Jupiter-bound space probe was powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator fueled with radioactive plutonium. The protestors failed to stop the launch, but it took a month to eradicate the worm from NASA&os;s computers, costing the space agency an estimated half million dollars in wasted time and resources. [More]
Sun 08/17	The winding Milky Way A new map reveals a complicated outer halo in our galaxy.
Sun 08/17	Saturn's geyser-spewing moon Enceladus stumps science Frozen iceball or hidden ocean? NASA's Cassini spacecraft has renewed debate among planetary scientists over Saturn's geyser-spewing mystery moon, Enceladus.
Sat 08/16	NASA backs troubled rocket design Officials say NASA will stick with the Ares I design despite rumours that it is considering an alternative
Fri 08/15	NASA Has Its Closest Look at Geysers on Saturn Moon The NASA spacecraft Cassini has taken razor sharp close-ups of Enceladus, which has jumped to near the top of the list of potential places for life in the solar system.
Fri 08/15	Biggest 3D galaxy map to probe dark energy's history The Sloan Digital Sky Survey has entered a new phase, probing to greater distances to study the universe's expansion history
Fri 08/15	The great (and sometimes serious) debate about Pluto The entrance to the debate over Pluto's planet status said it all: With techno music blaring in the background, the two debaters and a moderator walked into the auditorium, cameras flashing and the audience clapping.
Fri 08/15	Great Planet Debate ends in stalemate What is a planet? As Pluto's lost status hangs in the balance, astronomers agree that we need a new way of looking at the solar system
Thu 08/14	Discord With Russia a Worry for NASA NASA's ability to send its astronauts to the $100 billion international space station is in danger of becoming a costly casualty of the Russia-Georgia war.
Thu 08/14	Source of jets found on Enceladus Cassini has pinpointed the site of eruption on Saturn's moon.
Thu 08/14	NASA delays Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launch NASA has delayed the launch of an unmanned spacecraft to the moon to scout for potential landing sites for astronauts. The moon craft is the first step in NASA's program to send astronauts back to the moon and beyond. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter was supposed to blast off from Cape Canaveral, in early December aboard an Atlas V rocket. But the launch was pushed back after NASA agreed to swap with the Air Force, which will fly a prototype space drone.
Wed 08/13	Puzzle of meteorite-asteroid link solved New analysis makes it possible to 'know our enemy.'
Wed 08/13	Cassini returns close-up images of moon's 'tiger stripes' Images taken during the probe's recent flyby of Enceladus may contain clues about the moon's geysers, which spew from tiger stripe-like fractures
Tue 08/12	Cassini transmits data home from Enceladus The spacecraft has begun sending data back from Saturn's moon.
Tue 08/12	Phoenix uncovers history of liquid water on Mars The Mars Phoenix Lander's discovery of the chemical perchlorate has mixed implications for the possibility of life on the planet (full text available to subscribers)
Tue 08/12	Phoenix Mars lander bakes third soil sample A third soil sample is being analysed by an onboard instrument called TEGA; meanwhile, the lander has dug its deepest trench yet
Mon 08/11	Springs to dampen NASA rocket's vibrations NASA will incorporate springs into its future Ares I rocket to prevent potentially deadly vibrations from shaking its astronaut crew
Mon 08/11	Opalescent stellar nursery imaged by Hubble To celebrate the telescope's 100,000 th orbit of Earth, astronomers release an image of a star-forming nebula
Mon 08/11	Perseid meteor shower set to dazzle One of the year's best displays of 'shooting stars' will occur on Tuesday at the peak of the Perseid meteor shower
Sun 08/10	Cassini swoops by Enceladus The spacecraft prepares for a close encounter with Saturn's geyser-spewing moon.
Sun 08/10	Hubble unveils image of NGC 2074 This image commemorates the telescope's 100,000 orbit.
Fri 08/08	Cassini to search for source of Saturn moon's plumes On Monday, the spacecraft will fly within 50 km of Enceladus, searching for heat signatures that could reveal what powers the moon's icy jets
Thu 08/07	'Supernova impostor' begins to dim unexpectedly The star Eta Carinae, which at times brightens like a supernova, also dims every 5.5 years – it has begun the process earlier than expected
Wed 08/06	What the total solar eclipse looked like from China Correspondent Phil McKenna was at the Great Wall for the 1 August event – relive it with him in a new video
Tue 08/05	Chemical Found on Mars Doesn't Rule Out Life With reports circulating on the Internet that the Phoenix lander had found a chemical in the Martian soil that made past or present life there highly unlikely, NASA officials quickly organized a teleconference yesterday to announce that although they had made an unexpected discovery, it had littl...

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