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* Investigation Casts Light on the Mysterious Flying Black Triangle http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/black_triangle_020805.html They are big, black, and triangular. In UFO folklore they are proof-positive that planet Earth is a rest stop for joyriding, but road-weary, extraterrestrials. * Brown Dwarfs Born Like Stars, Study Shows http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/brown_dwarfs_020805.html In size and mass, brown dwarfs fit somewhere between stars and planets. While they are too small to start or sustain the nuclear reactions that characterize stars, unlike planets they do create internal energy that's detectable to astronomers. In how they are formed, though, scientists believe brown dwarfs are more like stars. * Closet Star Cluster: The Obscure Coat Hanger Star Pattern http://www.space.com/spacewatch/coat_hanger_020802.html One of the most pleasing sky sights through binoculars or a small telescope can be found nearly overhead in our late evening midsummer sky. With the Moon out of the way this week, it is a good time to seek it out. ----------------------------------- Today in SpaceFlight: * NASA Officials Set Plan for Resuming Shuttle Flights http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts112_update_020802.html Plans to repair tiny cracks within the space shuttle fleet by welding them and resume flying by late September or early October were formally approved by NASA program officials as expected on Friday. * 'Picky' Inspector Might Have Saved Shuttle Program http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts_ap_020801.html Did a 27-year-old with perfect vision and admitted pickiness help prevent disaster on the space shuttle? * NASA's Robotic Return Mission to the Moon http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/robotic_moon_020801.html Scientists have called for NASA to mount a robotic return mission to the far side of the moon to collect samples from the solar system's own "big dig" - the oldest and deepest impact crater basin known. This giant site is known as South Pole-Aitken Basin. ------------------------------------ Today in Business/Industry: * Finmeccanica Purchases Marconi Mobile, Telespazio http://www.space.com/spacenews/ Finmeccanica, Rome, has acquired defense communications company Marconi Mobile and satellite service provider Telespazio in separate transactions, the Italian aerospace and engineering group announced Aug. 2

Hi all - now this sounds like extreme moonbounce! 73 de Mike From the ARRL web page Amateurs Invited to Listen for Radio Signals Bounced Off Asteroid (Aug 15, 2002) -- Amateur Radio operators have been invited to listen in as scientists bounce radio signals off an asteroid that's about to make a "flyby" of Earth. The so-called 2002 NY40 asteroid will come close enough to Earth that it will be visible to sky watchers using binoculars. But because asteroids reflect but a tiny fraction of the light that strikes their surface, a team at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico will attempt to "ping" the satellite with radio signals as it approaches Earth. "We will be transmitting about 900 kW with 73 dB of gain towards the asteroid," Mike Nolan of the Arecibo Radio Observatory told ARRL. "The transmitted signal will be such that the received signal comes back centered at 2380.0000000 MHz at the ground station we're aiming for--usually either Arecibo or the Green Bank Telescope." Nolan said the signal would be either CW or phase-coded at a bandwidth of up to 20 MHz. "We will be transmitting most of the time when the asteroid is within 20 degrees of zenith at Arecibo on August 15-20."

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Thanks for testing this topic, Wolfie. I cannot think why it is continuing to show new activity when there has been none.

The Voyagers, aren't they amazing. Still beaming back and they're way beyond Pluto. Still giving us great data. This is NASA's wisest inventment of all times.

Absolutely correct about the bang for the buck ratio with Voyager. It was brilliant and surpasses anything they anticipated. Kudos!

They're sending us data now about the very outer region of our solar system. The sun, to the Voyagers I and II must be a tiny little orb. They running a 25 watt transmitter, less than I use in my mobile rig around Austin. I wonder when they're power will finally go cold?

I recall their mentioning that a backward look at Pluto would be the last they expected to hear from Voyager. I also wonder how long their little batteries will last though it was expected to be long enough to maintain the memory for anyone in future worlds to download. Good luck if they did it on 8-track tape and they are using some sort of super digital mode.

The latest from NASA's Earth Observatory (08/20/2002) ----------------------------------------------------------------- New Features: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/ * The Migrating Boreal Forest http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/BorealMigration/ Since the last ice age, forest species across North America have migrated back and forth across the continent. At one point cold-adapted species such as spruce lived as far south as the Gulf Coast. Comapred to past climate fluctations, current warming is happening very rapidly, and modern forests may be unable to migrate or adapt fast enough to keep up. Large nature reserves that encompass different climatic zones may increase forests' genetic diversity and increase the chances that forest species can adapt and migrate in response to cliamte change. * Fish Kill in the Gulf of Oman http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/oman When fish began dying in droves off the coast of Oman, local media reported it was due to contaminated ballast water from a U.S. tanker while authorities feared that a toxic algal bloom was to blame. Neither was true. Using data from NASA's Terra and SeaWinds missions, a team of scientists demonstrated the fish kill was due to a series of natural environmental changes. -------------------- Natural Hazards: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/ * Latest Events: Fire: Widlfires and Haze over Borneo http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4703 Fire: Fires along Lena River near Yakutsk http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4699 Fire: Fires and Deforestation in Brazil http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4695 Fire: Fires Scorch Oregon http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4696 Fire: McNalley and Pines Fires in California http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4697 Storm: Typhoon Phanfone http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4698 Volcano: Eruption of Pago http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4700 Flood: Flooding on Elbe River http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4701 Flood: Flooding along Danube River http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4702 Unique Imagery: Black Water off the Gulf Coast of Florida http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4689 Storm: Tropical Storm Cristobal http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=4688 -------------------- In the News: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/ * Latest Images: The Migrating Boreal Forest http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10295 Floods in Germany http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10294 Contrail Web over the Central Rh�ne Valley, Eastern France http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10293 Still Watching for the Next El Ni�o http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10292 Lena River Delta http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10291 Biscuit Fire, Oregon from NASA�s New Satellite�Aqua http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10290 Cloud Arcs in the Western Pacific http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10289 New Land Cover Classification Maps http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10288 * NASA News http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ - Instrument Aboard NASA's Aqua Satellite Joins Twin to Begin Comprehensive Global Coverage * Media Alerts http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/ - Songbird Population Declines Linked to Acid Rain - Air Pollution Cleansed Through Ocean Cloud Processes, Say Hebrew University Scientists * Headlines from the press, radio, and television: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Headlines/ - Oceans May Help Clean the Air - Terra Satellite Refines Map of Global Land Cover - Global Warming Threatens Ocean Ecosystems - Scientists Cautious About Global Warming Link to Flood Disasters - El Nino Blamed for Weather Chaos - Asian Haze Poses �Widespread Threat� - Plankton Loss Potential Threat to Seas, Climate - NASA: Eastern U.S. Smokeout in Early July Set Record - Jet Contrails Leave Their Mark on Climate - Global Warming is Changing Tropical Forests - Satellite Sees Through Smoke to Help Track Wildfires - Wildfires May be a Taste of Global Warming - West Nile Will Sweep Across Whole US - Satellites Reveal A Mystery Of A Large Change In Earth�s Gravity Field - Monsoon Intensity Increasing as Earth Warms

Today on SPACE.com -- Tuesday, August 20, 2002 -- http://www.space.com/ In today's issue: /------------------------------------- Capture the Solar System with the Coolpix System! http://www.nikoncoolpix.com/ -------------------------------------/ Featured Space Store Product * Astronaut Ice Cream Science/Astronomy: * SPECIAL REPORT: 2002 Leonid Meteor Shower * Behind the Pictures: Top 10 Voyager Facts * Mars-like Lab Conditions Support Life SpaceFlight: * Vigil for CONTOUR Spacecraft Continues * New Image Gallery: Voyager's Photo Legacy * Astronotes: Lance Bass Given Until August 23 to Produce Payment for ISS Trip Business/Industry: * Spot Names Replacement for Departing Chief Executive Plus... * SpaceTV, SpaceWatch * Solar and Space Weather * Starry Night, TeamSETI * Space Age Jobs ----------------------------------- Featured Space Store Product * Astronaut Ice Cream http://www.space.com/spaceagegear/ Just what you need after a hard day on orbit! Just kick back and enjoy this freeze dried ice cream while the planet gently spins below you. Everyone loves this one! (one serving) ----------------------------------- Today in Science/Astronomy: * SPECIAL REPORT: 2002 Leonid Meteor Shower http://www.space.com/spacewatch/leonids_2002.html Fast on the heels of the summer Perseids, it's time to look ahead to the current king of meteor showers, the Leonids. While the 2002 peak on Nov. 19 won't equal last year's stunning display, it will still be a remarkable storm that even casual skywatchers should not miss. Unless you plan to wait for 2033. * Behind the Pictures: Top 10 Voyager Facts http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/top10_voyager_020820-1.html Looking back over the 25 years since the first Voyager launch on Aug. 20, 1977, the twin spacecraft are remembered first and foremost as our emissary eyes in deep space. * Mars-like Lab Conditions Support Life http://www.space.com/searchforlife/mars_conditions_020819.html A laboratory experiment simulating conditions on Mars found that certain terrestrial microorganisms called methanogens can survive in extreme Mars-like conditions involving low air pressure. ----------------------------------- Today in SpaceFlight: * Vigil for CONTOUR Spacecraft Continues http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/contour_vigil_020819.html The CONTOUR mission team clings to the hope they'll hear from the still-silent comet probe. The spacecraft is now more than 1.3 million miles (2.1 million kilometers) from Earth. * New Image Gallery: Voyager's Photo Legacy http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/ Younger generations might think of the twin Voyagers as two way-out-there spacecraft. But space buffs from the 70s and 80s remember Voyager for its unbelievable stream of pictures. * Astronotes: Lance Bass Given Until August 23 to Produce Payment for ISS Trip http://www.space.com/news/astronotes-1.html The Russian space agency has given 'N Sync singer Lance Bass five days to come up with payment for a trip to the international space station this fall, a spokesman said Monday. ------------------------------------ Today in Business/Industry: * Spot Names Replacement for Departing Chief Executive http://www.space.com/spacenews/ Spot Image Corp. of Chantilly, Va., has tapped veteran company executive Neal Carney to replace Gene Colabatistto as its chief executive officer. ------------------------------------ * SpaceTV: http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/spacetv/ * SpaceWatch: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/ * Space Age Jobs http://www.spacejobs.com/ * Uplink: Share your opinion! http://uplink.space.com/ ------------------------------------- SOLAR and SPACE WEATHER (August 20, 2002) 3-Day Solar Forecast Solar activity is expected to be moderate to high. Region 69 has the potential for major flare activity. 3-Day Aurora Forecast Earth's geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet to active with a chance of isolated minor storming. Active levels are expected Monday. Quiet to unsettled conditions are expected Tuesday and Wednesday. Solar Data The current sunspot number is 308, and the solar wind speed recently clocked in at 505 kilometers per second. The solar wind density was 8.4 protons per cubic centimeter. (Speed and density values are snapshots in time and change during the day.) http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_weather.html

A s t r o A l e r t Sun-Earth Alert Solar Terrestrial Dispatch http://www.spacew.com/astroalert.html 21 August 2002 02:00 UTC (10 pm EDT) HEADS UP! AURORA MAY BE VISIBLE IN NORTH AMERICAN MIDDLE LATITUDES Auroral activity is becoming visible across many middle latitude regions at the time of this writing - for North American observers. The latest unconfirmed sighting is from New Hampshire, reporting brief tall rays and a diffuse glow to the north. A middle latitude auroral activity watch was issued several hours ago, but a posting here was held off until we could ascertain that conditions would hold up. It appears the Earth is imbedded in a stable solar wind stream capable of producing enhanced substorm activity. This disturbance is related to another coronal mass ejection disturbance thought to have originated from active sunspot complex 10069. Happy hunting! /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WATCH WATCH ISSUED: 20:30 UTC, 20 AUGUST 2002 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ VALID BEGINNING AT: IMMEDIATELY VALID UNTIL: 19:00 UTC (3 pm EDT) ON 21 AUGUST HIGH RISK PERIOD: 20 AUGUST (UTC DAYS) MODERATE RISK PERIOD: 20-21 AUGUST PREDICTED ACTIVITY INDICES: 25, 15, 14, 12 (21 AUGUST - 24 AUGUST) POTENTIAL MAGNITUDE OF MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY: LOW TO MODERATE POTENTIAL DURATION OF THIS ACTIVITY: MAIN BELT = 12 HOURS MINOR BELT = 12 TO 24 HOURS ESTIMATED OPTIMUM OBSERVING CONDITIONS: NEAR LOCAL MIDNIGHT EXPECTED LUNAR INTERFERENCE: MODERATE OVERALL OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVATIONS FROM MIDDLE LATITUDES: FAIR TO POOR AURORAL ACTIVITY *MAY* BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM... WASHINGTON STATE TO IDAHO TO NORTHERN WYOMING TO SOUTH DAKOTA TO NORTHERN IOWA TO NORTHERN ILLINOIS TO NORTHERN INDIANA TO NORTHERN OHIO TO PENNSYLVANIA TO DARK-SKY SITES OF NEW JERSEY. ACTIVITY *MAY* ALSO BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM... ENGLAND TO NORTHERN BELGIUM TO NORTHERN GERMANY TO NORTHERN POLAND TO LITHUANIA TO SOUTHERN LATVIA TO NORTHERN RUSSIA. NEW ZELAND AND EXTREME SOUTHEASTERN REGIONS OF AUSTRALIA MAY ALSO OBSERVE PERIODS OF ACTIVITY. SYNOPSIS... A second very mild shock presumeably from activity associated with Region 10069, arrived at the Earth near 15:48 UTC on 20 August. The disturbance started out with a northward turning of the IMF. However, over the last 2 hours, the IMF has swung toward a more southward orientation. Isolated moderate to strong high latitude substorming is currently being observed. These conditions may provide some dark-sky middle latitude observers with a chance to glimpse periods of auroral activity over the next 12 hours - provided solar wind conditions remain favorable. This watch will remain valid through 19:00 UTC (3 pm EDT) on 21 August. It will then be updated or allowed to expire. For updated information, visit: http://www.spacew.com/aurora/forum.html PLEASE REPORT OBSERVATIONS OF AURORAL ACTIVITY TO: http://solar.spacew.com/submitsighting.html Observations reported here are permanently recorded for future study and are immediately made available in real-time to a large network of observers world-wide via the Internet, e-mail and pager. If you observe activity, your assistance to contribute to this database would be appreciated. A FREE trial of the space weather "SWIM" software package is now available at: http://www.spacew.com/swim. Use it to monitor current conditions. It may also be used to monitor any image resource you find on the Internet (including almost any type of 'cam' or "pictures of the day" you can find). ** End of the AstroAlert Bulletin **

PLUTO EVENTS PERPLEX ASTRONOMERS The last two months have been good ones for Plutophiles. In July a U.S. Senate subcommittee fortified NASA's budget with $105 million to continue work on the New Horizons mission, which could be launched toward the distant planet as soon as 2006. And during the past five weeks telescopes have captured the passage of Pluto in front of not one, but two faint stars. Although analysis of the stars' brief disappearances has only begun, it is already clear that observing teams from the United States and Europe have come to very different conclusions about the state of Pluto's atmosphere. During the first event, on July 20th (Universal Time), Pluto's shadow crossed South America and, unfortunately, barely missed passing over a string of major observatories in the Andes. The only "hits" came from astronomers with portable setups: Marc Buie and Oscar Saa used a 14-inch Celestron and a CCD camera near the small Chilean town of Mami�a, while Francois Colas had a video-equipped 12-inch telescope a little farther north near Arica. According to Bruno Sicardy, who coordinated the European effort, seven other ground teams in Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela were either clouded out or experienced technical difficulties. Fortunes improved for the August 21st occultation, as the broad path passed over observatories in Hawaii and the Far West.... http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_718_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - FIRST VIEW OF MARS IN X-RAYS On July 4, 1997, Mars Pathfinder helped humanity see the red planet in a whole new light. Exactly four years later, astronomers again saw Mars anew, when Konrad Dennerl (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics) pointed the Chandra X-ray Observatory at Mars and obtained the first ever X-ray image of our rusty neighbor. The realization that Mars has a high-energy glow is not surprising. Venus, Jupiter, Earth, Saturn, and even comets shine (albeit faintly) in X-rays. And, as with those bodies, the source is fluorescing oxygen atoms. Near heights of 80 kilometers in the Martian atmosphere, solar-wind particles strike oxygen atoms with enough energy to tear away their electrons. But these ions soon recombine with other electrons and return to their original, unexcited state, emitting X-rays in the process.... http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_715_1.asp - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ASTEROID FLYBY SEEN WORLDWIDE From Uzbekistan and the Crimea to the UK, across North America, and on to Hawaii, amateur astronomers around the world had fine views of the close flyby of asteroid 2002 NY40 during the evening of August 17-18, 2002. The experience of David Nance (Huntsville, Alabama) was typical of the many reports received at Sky & Telescope. He wrote: "I found 2002 NY40 easily and followed it for about 30 minutes. It was very bright (I'd estimate it at magnitude 9.5), and it was really spectacular sailing through the eyepiece, changing the patterns I formed with it and the framework of stars. My wife thought it was neat since it was so obviously not a 'fixed' star ... it looked a lot like a slow moving satellite on a really weird trajectory...." http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/asteroids/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - CONTOUR'S FATE LOOKS "BLEAK" Although efforts to reestablish contact with the Contour spacecraft continue, mission managers now suspect that the craft was destroyed during a rocket firing on August 15th. Convincing evidence came from images acquired by the Spacewatch telescope about 20 hours afterward, showing two objects separated in the sky by about 460 kilometers and located some 460,000 km from Earth.... Mission mananger Robert W. Farquhar and his team received the Spacewatch image in response to a call to professional and amateur astronomers to help locate the spacecraft. The image shows a pair of 18th-magnitude objects, one approximately three times brighter than the other. According to David W. Dunham, head of the mission-design team, the objects were then within 0.6 degrees of where Contour would have been if on its correct interplanetary trajectory, and their positions suggest that Contour's solid-fuel STAR-30 rocket motor provided about 3 percent less total thrust than expected. Dunham estimates that "Contour A" and "Contour B" are moving apart at roughly 6 meters per second (14 miles per hour). It is not yet clear what the two pieces might be. "The spacecraft was built around the STAR motor," Dunham notes, "and they weren't supposed to separate...." http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_712_1.asp ========================================================================= HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY * Last-quarter Moon on August 30-31. * Comet SWAN is low in the eastern sky around the time morning twilight begins for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. Look for it with binoculars. * Venus is low in the west-southwest in early twilight. For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup: http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/ ========================================================================= PREVIEW THE 2003 NIGHT SKY (Advertisement) SkyWatch '03: Your Annual Guide to the Night Sky! Jupiter, Saturn, and especially Mars will light up the night sky next year. What better way to observe them than with a new telescope. Compare 82 different scopes in the new Telescope Buyer's Guide section of SkyWatch '03. Also included in this annual publication are articles on how to use your telescope, 16 months of evening star charts (starting with September 2002), and more! Order your copy today. http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=62

Today in Science/Astronomy: * Three Small Constellations: The Dolphin, the Fox and the Arrow http://www.space.com/spacewatch/little_constellations_020823.html Between and around the three great constellations of the Summer Triangle (Lyra, the Harp; Cygnus, the Swan, and Aquila, the Eagle), there are three little ones. * Antarctic Sea Ice Increases over Past Two Decades http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/antarctic_020822.html In a surprising departure from other findings that point to a warming planet, a NASA researcher has found that the amount of ice in the Antarctic increased from 1979 to 1999, as measured by satellites. * Evidence for Oldest Meteor Impact Tied to Two Continents http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/earliest_impact_020822.html A cosmic impact thought to have occurred about 3.5 billion years ago was so incredible it covered the entire Earth with ejected material and generated ocean waves that soared more than half a mile high (1 kilometer) when they reached the shore. * Moon Seen As Nuclear Waste Repository http://www.space.com/news/nuclear_moon_020822.html As the debate rages over using the Yucca Mountain as a burial ground for thousands of tons of radioactive material, a better site for unwanted nuclear waste holds its mute vigil in the skies above the Nevada desert: the Moon.

Sun gives up secrets The huge ejections contain twisted solar material The Sun spits out huge bubbles of super-hot electrified gas. The solar eruptions blast out into space at speeds thousands of times faster than Concorde. Sometimes they can even disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, leading to power black-outs. They are also behind the most dramatic spectacle in the sky - the northern (and southern) lights. The colourful light shows happen when solar eruptions strike the region of space shielded by our planet's magnetic field. But despite their impact on Earth, it is not known exactly how the Sun spews out the giant bubbles of gas, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Now UK astrophysicists have found new clues. They think twisted magnetic fields deep within our star could be the driving force. The evidence comes from data gathered by the SOHO and Yohkoh satellites. Twisted structures Twists within the Sun's magnetic field were studied by a team at the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) in Surrey. One theory is these twisted structures are caused by the Sun rotating faster at the equator than the poles, says Dr Lucie Green of MSSL. But the new study, carried out with colleagues in France and Argentina, suggests a second option is more likely. "The magnetic field doesn't get twisted enough by the differential rotation that happens on the surface," Dr Green told BBC News Online. "The implication is that the magnetic field must get twisted deep within the Sun itself." Scientists hope it will one day be possible to predict when the Sun is likely to emit CMEs as part of space weather forecasts. "Prediction of space weather is still a long way off but our research is helping us understand why CMEs happen in the first place," says Dr Green. Source: BBC NEWS John

That is an amazing photograph. I was hoping it would be posted by one or the other of us. Space Power This month Science@NASA will publish a series of stories about the technology of space exploration--and what advances in technology are needed to send human and robotic explorers across the solar system. Today's installment, the first, is about space power. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/03sept_spacepower.htm?list89800

More aurora for us to hunt for: Aurora Alert: Saturday, Sept. 7th Space Weather News for Sept. 7, 2002 http://www.spaceweather.com AURORA WARNING: A solar wind shock wave swept past Earth on Sept. 7th at approximately 1630 UT (12:30 EST). The interplanetary magnetic field turned sharply south when the wave arrived, which means a geomagnetic storm is likely. Sky watchers in New Zealand and southern Australia, where it was nighttime when the shock wave struck, have a good chance of seeing Southern Lights. Observers in northern Europe, and perhaps Canada and northern US states, might see Northern lights after local nightfall on Saturday. Stay tuned to spaceweather.com for updates.

A s t r o A l e r t Sun-Earth Alert Solar Terrestrial Dispatch http://www.spacew.com/astroalert.html 07 September 2002 MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WARNING - 07 SEPTEMBER A powerful and high velocity coronal mass ejection was observed on 05 September that involved the violent ejection of a solar filament (a string of cooler gas suspended above the surface of the Sun). The ejection resulted in a high velocity CME travelling near 1700 km/sec toward the southeast of the Earth. However, a portion of the CME was also Earthward directed. The leading edge of this coronal mass ejection was observed impacting the Earth near 16:37 UTC on 07 September (12:37 pm EDT). This disturbance has the potential to drive moderate to strong levels of auroral storming over the high latitude regions. Middle latitude observers are also expected to observe some of the activity, particularly observers in Europe and north to central Russia where the timing of the arrival of this disturbance will probably be best for them. There is debate as to whether the disturbance will last long enough to produce visible activity by the time night falls for North America. Nevertheless, observers are encouraged to keep a close eye on the sky and current conditions. Current sighting reports are available at: http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html Current discussion of activity and the latest forecast notes are at: http://www.spacew.com/aurora/forum.html *NEW* A new real-time image publishing server is now operational that will permit people to publish images of astronomical or aurora events within 1 to 2 minutes of submitting them. This is an ideal avenue to publish images of observed activity in near real-time so others can see what you are seeing, or to showcase your own images in real-time. Details and instructions on how to use the new service are available at: http://www.spacew.com/gallery/help.html. The Gallery itself can be found at: http://www.spacew.com/gallery The official mid-latitude auroral activity warning report is included below: /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WARNING UPDATED: 16:30 UTC, 07 SEPTEMBER 2002 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ *** DISTURBANCE ARRIVAL ALERT *** *** POTENTIAL FOR MODERATE TO HIGH ACTIVITY EXISTS *** For North Americans, begin watching TONIGHT, the evening of 07 September. VALID BEGINNING AT: EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY VALID UNTIL: 19:00 UTC ON 08 SEPTEMBER HIGH RISK PERIOD: 07 SEPTEMBER (UTC DAYS) MODERATE RISK PERIOD: 07 - 08 SEPTEMBER PREDICTED ACTIVITY INDICES: 35, 20, 12, 12 (07 SEP - 10 SEP) POTENTIAL MAGNITUDE OF MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY: MODERATE TO HIGH POTENTIAL DURATION OF THIS ACTIVITY: MAIN BELT = 12 TO 18 HOURS MINOR BELT = 18 TO 24 HOURS ESTIMATED OPTIMUM OBSERVING CONDITIONS: NEAR LOCAL MIDNIGHT EXPECTED LUNAR INTERFERENCE: NONE OVERALL OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVATIONS FROM MIDDLE LATITUDES: FAIR TO GOOD AURORAL ACTIVITY *MAY* BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM... OREGON TO SOUTHERN IDAHO TO EXTREME NORTHERN UTAH TO SOUTHERN WYOMING TO NEBRASKA TO IOWA TO NORTHERN ILLINOIS TO INDIANA TO OHIO TO NORTHERN VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND. ACTIVITY *MAY* ALSO BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM... EXTREME NORTHERN FRANCE TO BELGIUM TO CENTRAL GERMANY TO CENTRAL POLAND TO BELARUS TO CENTRAL RUSSIA. SYNOPSIS... A moderately strong interplanetary shock was observed passing the ACE spacecraft near 16:18 UTC (12:18 pm EDT) on 07 September. The disturbance has good characteristics that are expected to help drive periods of intensified auroral storm activity. Middle latitude observers are encouraged to keep a close eye on conditions. European and Russian observers will be optimally placed for observing activity. There is some doubt as to whether the activity will remain strong enough to permit widespread middle latitude sightings by the time North America sees darkness. Keep a close eye on current conditions by visiting: http://www.spacew.com/aurora/forum.html and http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html where reports of activity will be displayed. The new phase of the moon will allow unrestricted and optimal observations of activity under dark skies - ideal conditions for observing the intricate details of auroral activity. This warning will remain in effect until 19:00 UTC on 08 September. It will then be updated or allowed to expire. Please note that a new real-time aurora image gallery is available for public use at: http://www.spacew.com/gallery. This service is capable of publishing imagery within 1 to 2 minutes of the receipt of the images. As a result, it is an ideal way for people to show others what they are seeing. If you have a digital camera and are able to take a snapshot of auroral activity, send your image to the gallery so other's who may be less fortunate can observe what you are seeing. If you are taking pictures with film, please feel free to submit your images after you have developed your film. For help and instructions on how to use the service, go to: http://www.spacew.com/help.html PLEASE REPORT OBSERVATIONS OF AURORAL ACTIVITY TO: http://www.spacew.com/submitsighting.html CURRENT REPORTED SIGHTINGS OF ACTIVITY MAY BE FOUND AT: http://www.spacew.com/www/auroras.html CURRENT GALLERY OF ASTRONOMICAL AND AURORA IMAGES: http://www.spacew.com/gallery ** End of the AstroAlert Bulletin ** ===============================================================

It was a typical night for Alaska. The sky was filled with auroras; intense waves of red and green and violet light shimmered hypnotically overhead. But it wasn't Alaska. It was Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, Washington and other continental US states, where surprised sky watchers saw Alaska-style auroras just yesterday. An unexpected geomagnetic storm ignited auroras over Europe, much of Canada and the United States on Sept. 3rd and 4th. Visit spaceweather.com to learn more about the storm and to see pictures of the auroras. http://www.spaceweather.com

Research Uncovers New Kuiper Belt Mystery Although the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy objects located past the orbit of Neptune, was only discovered in 1992, it's already presented a host of mysteries. One mystery is why an unusually large number of these objects have small satellites orbiting them - 8 out of the 500 objects discovered so far have had satellites. The high number brings into question the traditional theory that they're caused by collisions. Complete story in Southwest Research Institute News

Is this where we got our second and third moons? The Kuiper Belt? We are just beginning to learn about what is just beyond our own atmosphere. How wonderful to know there are always more universes to conquer with our imaginations! Thank you, John. I would share it with you if it were possible.

A Shocking Space Movie NASA Science News for September 19, 2002 Astronomers have captured extraordinary footage of a Manhattan-sized star rotating and spewing antimatter jets into space. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/19sep_crabmovie.htm?list89800

Today in Science/Astronomy: * Harvest Moon for Skywatchers, Birdwatchers and Farmers http://www.space.com/spacewatch/harvest_moon_020920.html The Full Moon of Saturday, Sept. 21 also carries the title of the Harvest Moon for those living in the Northern Hemisphere. It has a long history of importance for farmers and birdwatchers, which we'll explain below. First, let's look at what's different about a Harvest Moon. * Stunning New View of Energetic Crab Pulsar http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/crab_pulsar_020919.html Combining the power of the Hubble Space Telescope with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, researchers have made a short movie of a massive rotating star that provides new clues about how the powerful object works. * Crab Pulsar Close-up http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagepump/ Zoom in on the recent Crab Pulsar image! * Film Director Ron Howard Talks Space as His Apollo 13 Premieres in IMAX Theaters http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/crab_pulsar_020919.html With the IMAX theater giant screen premiere of his 1995 film Apollo 13, Academy Award winning director Ron Howard says that's about as close to outer space as he is likely to get. ----------------------------------- Today in SpaceFlight: * Air Force Marks the 100th Launch it Didn't Goof Up http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/range_milestone_020919.html You can't blame the U.S. Air Force for delaying launches from the Cape -- at least not for the past 100 shots. * New Space Junk Satellite Will Leave Earth's Grasp http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/space_junk_020919.html That mysterious object discovered in orbit around Earth on September 3 is likely not to hit the Moon. Rather, the suspected Saturn IVB upper stage will swing back into orbit around the Sun, scientists said today. * Delta 4 Still Aiming for November Launch but Problems Persist http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/delta4_update_020919.html Preparations to launch the first Delta 4 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in early November are continuing but engineers still haven't resolved a problem with the software to be used during the countdown, Boeing officials said Thursday. ------------------------------------ Today in Business/Industry: * CNES Director-General Resigns http://www.space.com/spacenews/ Gerard Brachet has resigned as director-general of the French space agency, CNES, and will seek appointment as director of a new organization managing Europe's Galileo satellite navigation project. ------------------------------------ * SpaceTV: http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/spacetv/ * SpaceWatch: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/ * Space Age Jobs http://www.spacejobs.com/ * Uplink: Share your opinion! http://uplink.space.com/ ------------------------------------- SOLAR and SPACE WEATHER (Septemebr 20, 2002) 3-Day Solar Forecast Solar activity is expected to be low to moderate through Friday. 3-Day Aurora Forecast Earth's field is expected to be mostly unsettled through Friday. Solar Data The current sunspot number is 228, and the solar wind speed recently clocked in at 525 kilometers per second. The solar wind density was 1.4 protons per cubic centimeter. (Speed and density values are snapshots in time and change during the day.) http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_weather.html

Space Medicine So you think a 6-hour car trip is tough on your body? How about a six-month trip to Mars? In this story, researchers discuss how to keep astronauts safe and healthy during long trips through the solar system. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/30sept_spacemedicine.htm?list89800

AMATEURS TO HELP DISCOVER EXTRA-SOLAR PLANETS --------------------------------------------- Astronomers at NASA and the University of California at Santa Cruz have launched a Web-based project that has amateur astronomers lining up to have a chance to discover extra-solar planets that 'transit' or pass in front of their parent stars. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0210/06planets/ TEAM TO DEVELOP NUCLEAR ELECTRIC POWER FOR SPACE ------------------------------------------------ A team of government, industry and academia, under the leadership of The Boeing Company, has been awarded a NASA contract to meet the challenge of developing nuclear electric power for deep space exploration. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0210/06boeingpower/ ASTRONOMERS PUT QUASARS IN THEIR PLACE -------------------------------------- A team of UK astronomers has made a decisive step toward resolving an argument that has rumbled on in the astronomical community for decades. The scientists from the University of Nottingham have been investigating the properties of quasars and nearby galaxies. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0210/05quasars/ NASA HOPEFUL FOR MONDAY SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH -------------------------------------------- NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston has taken back command of the international space station from Moscow following last week's hurricane alert. At Kennedy Space Center, Atlantis remains in good shape for launch Monday. The weather forecast, however, is somewhat iffy. http://spaceflightnow.com/station/status.html ARE LANDCOVER CHANGES ALTERING EARTH'S CLIMATE? ----------------------------------------------- While many scientists and policy makers have focused only on how heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide are altering our global climate, a new NASA-funded study points to the importance of also including human-caused land-use changes as a major factor contributing to climate change. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0210/05landcover/

Today in Science/Astronomy: * Upgrades to Boost SETI@home Alien Search http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/seti_021001-1.html The world's most popular ET-hunting program for home users is about to get upgrades of both its software and the telescope that feeds data into it. * Starry Night's Fall Sky Tour: Easy Targets in the Northern Sky http://www.space.com/spacewatch/easy_north_021001.html While much of the sky offers daunting challenges to backyard astronomers, the northern fall sky includes familiar stars and star patterns that will make even the most causal stargazer feel comfortable. * NEW! Wallpapers for your Desktop http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/downloads/wallpapers/ A new collection of images from Space Artist John Catraham, 'The Early Works' * Astronotes: Soccer Mom's Space Bid on Hold http://www.space.com/news/astronotes-1.html A Long Beach woman said this week that her bid to become the third space tourist is on hold, as pop star Lance Bass' quest to do the same stumbles forward. ----------------------------------- Today in SpaceFlight: * Mission Atlantis: Meet the Crewmembers of STS-112 http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts112_preview_021001.html Call them the leader, the mother, the organizer, the mentor, the ice breaker and the brother. * Hurricane Lili still a concern for launch http://www.space.com/shuttlemissions/ Hurricane Lili is heading toward the U.S. Gulf coast and there is enough uncertainty in its track that shuttle Atlantis' launch could be delayed -- not because of bad weather at the Cape but because of a potential threat to Mission Control in Houston. * Mission Atlantis: Helping the Station Keep its Cool http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts112_preview_020930.html With its cracked plumbing repaired and a much-anticipated television camera mounted to its exterior, shuttle Atlantis is ready to blast off this week on a complex 11-day assembly mission to the International Space Station (ISS). ------------------------------------ Today in Business/Industry: * Alcatel Finalizes Satellite Contract with China http://www.space.com/spacenews/ Alcatel Space has finalized a contract to provide the Chinese government with an electronics package for a large telecommunications satellite for launch in 2005 aboard a Chinese rocket, Alcatel Space announced Sept. 27. ------------------------------------ * SpaceTV: http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/spacetv/ * SpaceWatch: http://www.space.com/spacewatch/ * Space Age Jobs http://www.spacejobs.com/ * Uplink: Share your opinion! http://uplink.space.com/ ------------------------------------- SOLAR and SPACE WEATHER (October 1, 2002) 3-Day Solar Forecast Activity is expected to be low to moderate through Wednesday. 3-Day Aurora Forecast Earth's geomagnetic field is expected to be quiet to unsettled, with some active periods possible Monday and Tuesday. Solar Data The current sunspot number is 157, and the solar wind speed recently clocked in at 315 kilometers per second. The solar wind density was 4.3 protons per cubic centimeter. (Speed and density values are snapshots in time and change during the day.) http://www.space.com/spacewatch/space_weather.html

http://64.4.14.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=df9b86cc32916c06832cb16969fe06c5&lat=1034032623&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fwww%2ecnn%2ecom%2f2002%2fUS%2fWest%2f10%2f07%2fmeteor%2esighting%2eap%2findex%2ehtml

Sweetie, that link does not work anymore. What was it??? The shuttle is up. I have not seen NASA TV on mylaptop.....

NASA TV links http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ntvweb.html

Urban Sprawl: the Big Picture Earth-orbiting satellites have a wonderful view of our planet's fast-growing cities, but most city planners don't have access to this "big picture" from space. NASA-supported scientists are working to change that. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/11oct_sprawl.htm?list89800

The latest from NASA's Earth Observatory (10/29/2002) ----------------------------------------------------------------- New Features: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/ * Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/BAER The aftermath of a wildfire can be as dangerous as the blaze itself. The charred landscape is prone to flooding and erosion, and natural resource experts usually have only one week to assess the damage and propose steps to mitigate disaster. Satellite mapping of burned areas can save crews time and money by helping guide field crews to the most crucial areas. USDA Forest Service and University of Maryland scientists are partnering up in a project to collect ground-based data to check the accuracy of their satellite-based Burn Severity maps. -------------------- In the News: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/ * Latest Images: Eruption of Sicily's Mt. Etna http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10804 Monster Hurricane Kenna Poses Severe Threat to Mexican Coast http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10803 Space Shuttle view after Kolka Glacier Collapse http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10802 "The Optimist," Kalahari Desert, Namibia http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10801 Burn Severity for Oregon's Biscuit Fire http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10800 Where on Earth...? MISR Mystery Image Quiz #11 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10799 Tarpum Bay, Bahamas http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=10798 * NASA News http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ - Computer Model Suggests Future Crop Loss Due to Potential Increases in Extreme Rain Events Over Next Century - NASA to Develop Biohazard 'Smoke' Detector - Shuttle Radar Clears the Air on Central America�s Topography * Headlines from the press, radio, and television: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/Headlines/ - Detection, Not Warming, Behind Increase in Antarctic Icebergs - U.S. Bird Species Declining - People Use 83 Percent of Land Surface - Belize Cave Records El Ni�o Events - NASA�s EO Data Put the Surveillance on the Mosquito - Cosmic Rays Linked to Clouds --------------------------------------------------------------------- Earth Observatory weekly mailing -- http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

What a great combination of earth and space science! This is geosynthesis at it's finest.

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/TGAM/20021122/UASTEB1/Science/science/science_temp/2/2/3/ An article about medium sized objects that might hit the earth. "Small meteors more likely to leave deadly trail of destruction on Earth, scientists say By STEPHEN STRAUSS Friday, November 22, 2002 � Page A21 Anyone who has ever been frightened by the Hollywood movie concept of an asteroid smashing into Earth can rest a little easier because of Canadian-led research published yesterday. Scientists have used previously secret U.S. military satellite data to estimate that a destructive impact will occur an average of once every 1,000 years. Previous estimates had suggested that an asteroid could strike once every 200 to 300 years. "Most of our attention has focused on the bigger guys which can cause global damage, but the mean time of them occurring is about 700,000 years. However, the smaller guys can cause significant regional damage and do it much more often," said Peter Brown, an astronomer at the University of Western Ontario in London, who is the lead author of a new paper on the subject published in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature.

I hope, if I die, I get to see it on the way down!

Ancient, Frozen Antarctic Life Revived, Along with Hopes for Life on Mars By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer 16 December 2002 Within ice that covers a salty, liquid Antarctic lake scientists have found and revived microbes that were at least 2,800 years old. The discovery, announced today, points to probable life within the underground lake and suggests the sort of ecosystem that might exist on Mars. The ancient microbes were in a state of suspended metabolism, similar to dormancy, said study team member John Priscu of Montana State University. "They're in a frozen state," Priscu said in a telephone interview. "They'll come back to life if you add water." Priscu and his colleagues camped out on the ice above 2.5-mile-long (5-kilometer) Lake Vida for about two weeks back in 1996. They drilled down about 50 feet (15 meters) to collect the aged bacteria. They were just reaching the briny slush of the lake, said to be seven times saltier than the ocean and able to remain liquid even at temperatures lower than -10 Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit). "It was hard drilling," Priscu said. "It was 40 below. It was a real tough job. The next step was to get to the brine." However, to prevent contaminating the pristine lake, the drilling system was back-pressured with de-ionized water. Seals began to fail, and the system started to leak. The researchers were forced to stop. Priscu thinks the lake holds live organisms. Life has been found in similar salty conditions, such as the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea. And his lab work shows organisms can thrive in the frigid temperatures presumed for Lake Vida. His team has frozen blocks of organisms to -15 Celsius and kept them alive. Confidence for life on Mars Further, he said similar pockets of ice or briny water on Mars almost surely hold life, or at least signs of it. Other researchers are typically more reserved about their speculation of possible life on Mars. But Priscu has seen the living, up close, in the harshest conditions our own planet has to offer. Critters called cyanobacteria dominate life at these extremes. Another Antarctic Lake, called Vostok, has been under similar study and organisms have been found in the ice above it. And several research teams have examined cyanobacteria in easier-to-reach pockets of polar ice. The creatures are innovative enough to generate their own sunscreen -- a handy ability to have on Mars, where radiation is harsher than on Earth. The Lake Vida creatures are unique for their age, determined by the age of ice in which they were embedded. Other similar studies have involved ice that is frequently replenished and not as old. Frozen polar regions on Mars might contain organisms similar to those Priscu and his colleagues have been studying over the years, he said. Or deep underground pockets of ice -- or even water -- could support them. In Priscu's mind, the question of finding life on Mars is only whether it will be crawling around or hung in a sort of natural ice museum. "It's either extinct or extant," he said, alliteratively ruling out the possibility of coming up entirely empty in the search for past or present life on the Red Planet. Just thaw them out He said data his team has collected suggest bacteria and their DNA can remain viable for up to a million years. Ice is a good preservative, he said. Add a little water -- which even in a deep freeze can occur in layers where frictional energy melts ice for brief periods -- and organisms might maintain and repair their blueprints for life for many millions of years. "If they're frozen [on Mars] and younger than 1 million years," Priscu said, "give them some water and they probably would come back." The research, funded by the National Science Foundation and NASA, is reported in the Dec. 16 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Peter Doran of the University of Illinois at Chicago is the lead author of the paper. When the study began, the scientists had thought Lake Vida might be a frozen chunk of ice, like other known "lakes" in the region. But the ice cores, along with ground-penetrating radar and long-term temperature data, revealed that Vida has a thick, light-blocking ice cover, vast amounts of ancient organic material and sediment, and the liquid zone underneath. "Mars is believed to have a water rich past, and if life developed, a Lake Vida-type ecosystem may have been the final niche for life on Mars before the water bodies froze solid," Doran said in a statement. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/antarctic_life_021216.html

A new NASA mission named "CHIPS" will soon leave Earth to study the remains of some uncomfortably close supernova explosions. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/06jan_bubble.htm?list89800

it good

Welcome and Aloha Ramesh. I am assuming you are somwhere in the Pakistan or India area. Please tell us more about you!

SHUTTLE COLUMBIA ROCKETS INTO ORBIT FOR SCIENCE FLIGHT ------------------------------------------------------ With fighter planes and radars scanning the sky for intruders, the shuttle Columbia thundered away on a marathon 16-day science mission Thursday, carrying a crew of seven - including the first Israeli astronaut - scores of experiments and a menagerie of animal and insect research subjects. http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030116launch/ Watch it on Nasa TV on your computer: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ntvweb.html

Ask yourself, what would really get Marci's juices going? Answer: a news story that combines space and volcanoes. At the edge of space � the same cold region where space shuttle Columbia broke up into a trail of debris � shiny, silvery blue clouds have been hovering. The high-altitude ice clouds are called noctilucent or "night-shining" clouds, and astronauts as well as Earth-bound scientists have been puzzled by their growing abundance. The clouds are visible from space and from the ground over areas that are experiencing summer weather. Astronauts on the space station are seeing them over the southern hemisphere where it's now warm. "We've seen definite changes," said John Olivero, a professor of physical science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla. "It appears the particles that make up the clouds have gotten slightly bigger with time and it appears the clouds are now visible further away from the poles than they have been before." Volcanic Beginning The last time these high, shiny clouds appeared in great numbers was after the 1883 eruption of the island volcano, Krakatoa, in Indonesia. The explosion hurled plumes of ash up to 50 miles into the air and caused spectacular sunsets. The ash particles also served as rare anchors to water vapor at high altitudes and the vapor condensed to ice, forming the brilliant blue clouds. Sky gazers who stayed up late following the eruption reported seeing wispy, glowing streaks in the night sky. Before this incident there were no reported sightings of noctilucent clouds. But why so many night shining clouds now? "It's still being debated," says Chester Gardner, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana. One reason scientists are having such a hard time understanding the shimmering clouds is their location. At 30-60 miles above Earth, the mesosphere is also known as the "ignorosphere" due to its inaccessibility. The region is too far to reach by weather balloon and yet it sits below where orbiting satellites or other craft might orbit because its heavier atmosphere would cause too much drag. The rest of the story at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/DailyNews/nighshiningclouds030228.html

Thank you, Terry! You knnow me very well. Most interesting! A Most Surprising Observation "Quite by accident, we have made a most surprising observation," reports Don Pettit, the science officer of the International Space Station. It happened during his spare time on a Saturday morning last month. Pettit was preparing to make some weightless soap bubbles--just for fun--when he discovered a very curious property of water in space. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/25feb_nosoap.htm?list89800

Interesting Clouds Astronauts onboard the International Space Station have been observing strange electric-blue clouds hovering near the edge of space. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18feb_nlc.htm?list89800

Today on SPACE.com -- Friday, March 7, 2003 -- http://www.space.com/ In today's issue: /------------------------------------- Interstellar Flight Be part of a real mission to the stars! Include your photo, message and DNA on board Humanity's First Starship. Makes a great gift! http://www.space.com/teamencounter/ -------------------------------------/ Featured Products * The Space Store Investigation Columbia: Newest Developments in Shuttle Inquiry http://www.space.com/columbiatragedy/ Spaceflight: * Model Rocket Engine Size Matters to Government Regulators * Russia Insists It Needs Cash from Space Station Partners Soon * Columbia Accident Hearing Probes NASA Workforce Erosion, Shuttle Safety Issues Technology: * Space Shuttle Tile System Unique, Future Could Bring Alternatives * Tech Today: Home Theater Made Easy Science/Astronony: * Fact vs. Fiction: Reading Weather in the Sun, Moon and Stars * The Big Rip: New Theory Ends Universe by Shredding Everything * Mars Core Squishy, Goes with the Tidal Flow * New Views of Jupiter Force Rethink of Cloudy Theories Recent Headlines: * Three Members Added to Columbia Investigation Panel * Columbia Public Hearing to Include Experts on Foam, Shuttle Systems * Molten Aluminum Found on Columbia Tiles * NASA: No Internal Shuttle Policy Changes Ahead of Probe Findings * China Outlines its Lunar Ambitions * Pioneer 10: Farewell to an Old Friend * Seven Newfound Moons of Jupiter Bring Tally to 47 * Radio Star: ALMA Telescope to See Stellar Birth, Galactic * Powerful Space Bursts Reflect Two Ways to Make Black Holes Plus... * SpaceTV, SpaceWatch * Solar and Space Weather * Starry Night, TeamSETI -----------------------------------

Busy Sky: Jupiter, Mars and Comet NEAT Space Weather news for March 8, 2003 http://www.spaceweather.com MARS: Mars and Earth are converging for an extraordinary close encounter later this year. The approaching red planet is now brighter than a 1st-magnitude star--it's gliding through the star fields of Sagittarius in the morning sky. JUPITER: The brightest "star" in the evening sky is Jupiter. This month the giant planet is gliding by the Beehive Cluster of stars in the constellation Cancer. The view through binoculars is splendid! COMET NEAT: After a close encounter with the Sun last month, Comet NEAT is emerging from the Sun's glare into the evening skies of the southern hemisphere. Sky watchers in Argentina, Australia and New Zealand (among other places) say the comet is dim yet visible to the unaided eye with a tail that looks nice through small telescopes and binoculars. AURORAS: Solar wind gusts buffeted Earth's magnetic field last week and sparked auroras at high latitudes. The next series of geomagnetic storms could begin around March 15th. Visit spaceweather.com for images, sky maps and more information.

The Oldest Light in the Universe A NASA satellite has taken a picture of the Big Bang's ancient afterglow. Scientists have analyzed the data and learned that the universe is 13.7 billon years old (plus or minus 1 percent)and that the first stars appeared only 200 million years after the Big Bang. These results are a milestone in cosmology, says the NASA director of astronomy and physics. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/11feb_map.htm?list89800

Living up to the Hype: Superconductors Thanks to years of research involving experiments flown on the space shuttle, NASA-supported scientists are closer than ever to unlocking the amazing potential of high-temperature superconductors. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/05feb_superconductor.htm?list89800

Today on SPACE.com -- Monday, March 10, 2003 * Columbia's Final Data Transmission Sends Mixed Signals http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_data_030310.html In the moments before Columbia broke apart over Texas, an attempt may have been made to override the shuttle's autopilot, based on an exhaustive analysis of the final bits of data, officials say. * Apollo Moonwalkers: Vision Needed in Columbia Aftermath http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_vision_030310.html Apollo astronauts from the first and last expedition to the Moon see far-reaching consequences rippling through America's space program due to the loss of Columbia and its seven-person crew. * NASA Investigates Dozens of Scenarios, Though Odds of Foam Damaging Orbiter Remote http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_search_030308.html A NASA-wide campaign is underway with technical teams sifting through data and debris in an attempt to find the cause behind the loss of Columbia and its crew. * Shuttle Probe to Study NASA Communication http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_communication_030308.html A new team will look into NASA's internal communications, including e-mails and management directives, as part of the investigation into what caused the breakup of the space shuttle Columbia last month. * Shuttle Flight Plans in Work; NASA Aims for Launch by Summer 2004 http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_fleet_030308.html NASA and its contractors already are doing the planning and engineering work necessary to launch another shuttle no later than summer 2004, shuttle program sources told Florida Today. * Russian Imaging Satellite To Serve Civil, Commercial Users http://www.space.com/spacenews/spacenews_businessmonday_030310.html Russia's TsSKB Progress organization of Samara is building what program officials say is the country's first civilian imaging spacecraft capable of transmitting high-resolution digital pictures to ground stations as it passes overhead.

From NASA science news: From Feb. 4th, 2003: At the dawn of the space age some 40 years ago, we always knew who was orbiting Earth or flying to the Moon. Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn. They were household names--everywhere. Lately it�s different. Space flight has become more �routine.� Another flight of the shuttle. Another visit to the space station. Who�s onboard this time? Unless you�re a NASA employee or a serious space enthusiast, you might not know. Dave Brown, Rick Husband, Laurel Clark, Kalpana Chawla, Michael Anderson, William McCool, and Ilan Ramon Now we know. Those are the names of the seven astronauts who were tragically lost on Saturday, Feb. 1st, when the space shuttle Columbia (STS-107) broke apart over Texas. Before the accident, perhaps, they were strangers to you. But if that's so, why did you have a knot in your gut when you heard the news? What were those tears all about? Why do you feel so deep-down sad for seven strangers? Astronauts have an unaccountable hold on us. They are explorers. Curious, humorous, serious, daring, careful. Where they go, they go in peace. Every kid wants to be one. Astronauts are the essence of humanity. They are not strangers. They are us. While still in orbit Dave Brown asked, jokingly, �do we really have to come back?� No. But we wish you had. The Science@NASA team, as does all of NASA and the world, extends heartfelt sympathies to the family, friends and colleagues of the STS-107 crew. Please see the NASA Home Page (http://www.nasa.gov) for more information on the Columbia Investigation. --Tony Phillips, Ron Koczor, Bryan Walls, Becky Bray, Patrick Meyer.

Aurora Blues Astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) have seen a lot of auroras in recent months. They've even flown through some. Usually the lights are green; sometimes they're red. Other colors are rare. So when ISS science officer Don Pettit looked out the window on March 29th and saw vivid blue-rimmed auroras, he had to grab his camera and take a picture. Read the FULL STORY to find out what makes these Northern Lights so blue: http://science.nasa.gov/ppod/y2003/09apr_aurorablues.htm

Supernova On March 29, 2003, in the constellation Leo, something exploded--bright enough to see through small telescopes in brightly-lit cities. Astronomers who have collected data from the event say it provides the long-sought link between supernovas and mysterious gamma ray bursts. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/10apr_grb.htm?list89800

It's a Supernova! Source: NASA   Posted: 4/10/2003 On March 29, 2003, in the constellation Leo, something exploded--bright enough to see through small telescopes in brightly-lit cities. Astronomers say it provides the long-sought link between supernovas and mysterious gamma ray bursts. Full story...

Delay to US Mars mission By Helen Briggs BBC News Online science reporter The US space agency Nasa has been forced to delay the launch of the first of the two rovers it is sending to Mars this summer. The take-off has been put back by a week or so to allow electrical repairs to be made to the identical rovers. The rover will act as a 'robot geologist' Pre-launch tests at the weekend raised concerns that they might be vulnerable to a computer glitch. The spacecraft will now have to be taken apart at Nasa's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. George Diller of the Kennedy Space Center said an electrical circuit board needed to be modified. "It'll be a fairly easy thing to fix but it does mean going into both of the rovers, removing the circuit card and making some modifications to it," he told BBC News Online. The first Mars Exploration Rover was set to be launched by a Delta 11 rocket on 30 May. It will now take off between 6 June and 19 June. The second spacecraft will be launched 10 days after the first. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2950395.stm

Oooh I remember that little rover. They ran it around the lava beds here for a while to see how it would perform.

Wow, did you see that?

alas no. I did get to have dinner with the astronauts who were also practicing for an ashy landing. I think having dialogue with three of my very own immediate astronauts was one of those nights one does not forget!

Some of the NASA stuff done here during the early stages of the space race were so classified as to be off limits to the public - even those with connections. Scandia Lab was running a lot of the experiments. And, you know how secret they can be!

Dinner with the astronauts! Wow. That's great. What did you talk about?

Talking shop was what I wanted out of them, but instead they ended up picking my brains about what was edible on the "exotic" Japanese dinner buffet. This was pre-sushi days, so the thought of eating seaweed and raw fish scared them to death. They would go the moon strapped to a firecracked, but NOT eat weird food. One noticed a big bowl of eggs. He commented that at least they knew how to eat hard boiled eggs! I hated to tell them, but those eggs were also raw! Used to cool off blistering hot soups, they end up like thin scrambled eggs. It was great fun. We talked about all sorts of things. I wondered to them if the constellations were as hard to define from 35,000 feet as it was beyond. I never heard the answer.

What a great question for them.

I had trouble seeing anything recognizable even at 20,000 feet. I wonder what the altitude is for losing the perspective we have here on earth. Of course, everything we see from here is at different distances and moving independently. What we see today will not look like it will look in the future, not like it looked in ancient times! ISS science officer Don Pettit's latest "Saturday Morning Science" experiment reveals something oddly familiar about boiling water in space. FULL STORY (WITH MOVIES) http://science.nasa.gov/ppod/y2003/01may_boiling.htm

Geomagnetic activity surged for a while on Monday, April 28th, when Earth glided through a solar wind stream. Northern Lights in the United States descended as far south as Wisconsin. More auroras are possible on May 1st when our planet is expected to encounter another solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole on the sun. Meanwhile, the sunspot number is rising. The face of the sun is peppered with active regions--one stretching nearly 10 Earth-diameters from end to end. The impressive sunspot group is easy to observe using safe solar projection methods. Visit spaceweather.com for images and more information

Space Weather News for May 9, 2003 http://spaceweather.com SUN MOVIE: On May 7th German astronomers witnessed something remarkable: a spacecraft and a planet crossing the face of the Sun at the same time. The planet was Mercury. The spacecraft was the International Space Station. Visit spaceweather.com to view a movie of this unprecedented double solar transit. AURORA WATCH: Earth is still inside a high-speed solar wind stream that has triggered mild geomagnetic storming since May 7th. High-latitude auroras are possible this weekend. Visit spaceweather.com for images and updates.

MARTIAN VIEW OF EARTH --------------------- Have you ever wondered what you would see if you were on Mars looking at the Earth through a small telescope? Now you can find out, thanks to a unique view of our world recently captured by NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft currently orbiting the Red Planet. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/22earthmgs/ HUBBLE SEES THE MYSTERIOUS 'GARDEN-SPRINKLER' NEBULA ---------------------------------------------------- There are many mysterious objects seen in the night sky which are not really well understood. For example, astronomers are puzzled by the "jets" emerging from planetary nebulae. However, the S-shaped jet from Henize 3-1475 is the most perplexing of all. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/22sprinkler/ THE UNIVERSE'S BIGGEST CONSTRUCTION SITES ----------------------------------------- Images made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed two distant cosmic construction sites buzzing with activity. This discovery shows how super massive black holes control the growth of massive galaxies in the distant Universe. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/21construction/ FROZEN LIGHT RESEARCH HOLDS PROMISE, NASA SAYS ---------------------------------------------- NASA-funded research at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., that literally stops light in its tracks, may someday lead to breakneck-speed computers that shelter enormous amounts of data from hackers. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/21frozen/ SLAG ON SHUTTLE DEBRIS SUGGESTS LOCATION OF BREACH -------------------------------------------------- Based on chemical analysis of slag found on the back side of a wing leading edge fragment, investigators now believe the breach that destroyed the shuttle Columbia occurred at or very near the lower inboard corner of reinforced carbon carbon panel No. 8, very close to where a so-called T-seal was mounted between RCC panels 7 and 8. http://spaceflightnow.com/shuttle/sts107/030520slag/ NEWLY-DISCOVERED STAR MAY BE THIRD-CLOSEST TO US ------------------------------------------------ The local celestial neighborhood just got more crowded with a discovery of a star that may be the third closest to the Sun. The star, "SO25300.5+165258," is a faint red dwarf star estimated to be about 7.8 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Aries. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/20closestar/ FIVE SPACECRAFT JOIN TO SOLVE AN AURORAL PUZZLE ----------------------------------------------- Five spacecraft have made a remarkable set of observations, leading to a breakthrough in understanding the origin of a peculiar and puzzling type of aurora. Seen as bright spots in Earth's atmosphere and called "dayside proton auroral spots," they are now known to occur when fractures appear in the Earth's magnetic field, allowing particles emitted from the Sun to pass through and collide with molecules in our atmosphere. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0305/20auroral/ AIR FORCE WEATHER SATELLITE LAUNCH RESCHEDULED ---------------------------------------------- The long-delayed launch of the U.S. military's next polar-orbiting weather satellite is being targeted for this summer, the Air Force says. http://spaceflightnow.com/titan/g9/030519reset.html

GIANT GAS CLOUD MADE OF ATOMS FORMED IN FIRST STARS --------------------------------------------------- Astronomers studying the most distant quasar yet found in the Universe have discovered a massive reservoir of gas containing atoms made in the cores of some of the first stars ever formed. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0307/25atoms/ TROUBLES STRIKE LANDSAT 7 ------------------------- Officials with the Landsat 7 Earth-watching satellite program have now spent almost two months struggling with a problem that significantly degrades the scientific value of images from the observatory. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0307/27landsat7/ SPACE ENTREPRENEURS SEEK REGULATORY RELIEF ------------------------------------------ Entrepreneurs creating new commercial space companies as well as those interested in investing in those companies said this past week that Congress needs to take several steps to improve regulations to allow those companies to flourish. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0307/26hearing/ INTRIGUING CELESTIAL IMAGES ARRIVE FROM GALEX --------------------------------------------- NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer has beamed back revealing images of hundreds of galaxies to expectant astronomers, providing the first batch of data on star formation that they had hoped for. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0307/27galex/ NEXT INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CREW NAMED ------------------------------------------- Veteran NASA astronaut Michael Foale and seasoned Russian cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri are set to be the eighth crew to live aboard the International Space Station. They're scheduled to begin their mission in October, when they launch into space aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0307/26exp8crew/ CANADIAN TEAM MAPS HALOS AROUND GALAXIES ---------------------------------------- Two University of Toronto astronomers and a U.S. colleague have made the first measurements of the size and shape of massive dark matter halos that surround galaxies. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0307/25halos/

Spaceflight: * X-43A: High Hopes For Return to Flight http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/x43a_return_030728.html As NASA prepares a return-to-flight of its X-43A Hyper-X vehicle, the agency is holding its collective breath about the future of "air-breathing" engine technologies. A second vehicle is now being prepped to fly no later than mid-November. * Fixing Landsat 7 Taking Longer Than Expected http://www.space.com/spacenews/spacenews_businessmonday_030728.html Efforts to fix the Landsat 7 Earth observation spacecraft are taking longer than expected, and now the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is preparing for the possibility that the problem may be permanent, a USGS spokesman said. * Poll: Support for Space Program Steady http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/sts107_poll_030728.html Two-thirds of Americans say the space shuttle should continue to fly despite two disastrous accidents, but enthusiasm for putting civilians aboard is declining, an Associated Press poll finds * NASA Pluto Mission to Rely on Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/atlas5_pluto_030725.html Humanity's first probe to take an up-close look at Pluto and its moon Charon will be launched in January 2006 on an Atlas 5 rocket, NASA officials announced Thursday. * U.S. Air Force Lowers Boom on Boeing Delta Program http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/boeing_eelv_030724.html Boeing Co. will forfeit $1 billion in Pentagon launch business and be suspended from upcoming launch competitions as punishment for cheating in a 1998 U.S. Air Force rocket procurement, a senior service official said. * Tech Today: Lights, Camera, Action! The New Palm Zire 71 http://www.space.com/techtoday/tech_today.html After years of so-so new PDAs, Palm is finally aiming for the top with its fun-loving Zire 71 ----------------------------------- Science/Astronomy: * Space Mailbag: Suggestions for Renaming the Moon -- Or Not http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/space_mailbag_moon_030725-1.html The Space Mailbag is stuffed with suggestions about what (or whether) to rename the Moon. * New Map of Water Ice on Mars http://www.space.com/marsrover/ A new global map of Mars shows likely locations of water ice based on observations of hydrogen made by NASA's Odyssey spacecraft. * Image of the Day: Handle With Care http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_030728.html After several delays, NASA's last Great Observatory, Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is scheduled to launch on August 23. * Astronotes: Catch a Shooting Star Near Mars http://www.space.com/astronotes/astronotes.html This is a great week to see shooting stars, and Tuesday morning offers a good opportunity to pair meteor watching with planet hunting. ---------------------------------- Recent Headlines: * U.S. Air Force Lowers Boom on Boeing Delta Program http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/boeing_eelv_030724.html * Dennis Tito Ready to Invest in Suborbital Rocket, But Wary of Gov't. Regulations http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/tito_regulations_030724.html * Debate Intensifies for Simple Vs. Advanced OSP Design http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/osp_debate_030724.html * X Prize Entry Starchaser Successfully Test Drops Piloted Capsule http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/starchaser_test_030424.html * Gravity's Rainbow: GRACE Mission Pushes Forward http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/gravity_map_030725.html * Undersea World Points to Possible Origin of Life, Maybe Even ET http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/lost_city_030724.html * Panspermia: Spreading Life Through the Universe http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_panspermia_030724.html

Roll your own radio telescope from an old satellite dish. http://radio.uindy.edu/radio/cheap.htm

mars mars and mars!!!!!!!!!! you guys look for the red "star" and with a telescope, it'll look like a full moon (tonight is the best night for viewing-southern)

southern portion of the sky, i should've said, time depends on your location--nasa has info on it and you can type in 'mars' on google and get a load of info

I can see it, I can see it! Was going to take the kids to the CU telescope tonight but... too many meltdowns this afternoon... just wasn't worth it to me. Although it is kind of cloudy here tonight, the clusters of clouds break up nicely and allow a great view of what looks like the brightest (and kind of pink) star I've ever seen! Too neat!

Hi all The sun has been active too so possibility of aurora? Look to the northern skies! de Mike

Yay! Fun in the sky for everyone! Too bad monsoons have socked us in for the last week or more. All it does is make the grass grow faster and the tide gauges rise faster. Hmmm... surf may be up on the River, too...! Who has an old satellite dish? I hear they are pretty available at the larger rubbish tips around the nation nowadays. Happy hunting!

A 53-hour Chandra observation of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster (left) has revealed wavelike features (right) that appear to be sound waves. The features were discovered by using a special image-processing technique to bring out subtle changes in brightness. Illustration of Ripples in Perseus These sound waves are thought to have been produced by explosive events occurring around a supermassive black hole (bright white spot) in Perseus A, the huge galaxy at the center of the cluster. The pitch of the sound waves translates into the note of B flat, 57 octaves below middle-C. This frequency is over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing, so the sound is much too deep to be heard. The image also shows two vast, bubble-shaped cavities, each about 50 thousand light years wide, extending away from the central supermassive black hole. These cavities, which are bright sources of radio waves, are not really empty, but filled with high-energy particles and magnetic fields. They push the hot X-ray emitting gas aside, creating sound waves that sweep across hundreds of thousands of light years. Animation of Sound Waves Generated in Perseus Cluster The detection of intergalactic sound waves may solve the long-standing mystery of why the hot gas in the central regions of the Perseus cluster has not cooled over the past ten billion years to form trillions of stars. As sounds waves move through gas, they are eventually absorbed and their energy is converted to heat. In this way, the sound waves from the supermassive black hole in Perseus A could keep the cluster gas hot. The explosive activity occurring around the supermassive black hole is probably caused by large amounts of gas falling into it, perhaps from smaller galaxies that are being cannibalized by Perseus A. The dark blobs in the central region of the Chandra image may be fragments of such a doomed galaxy. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/perseus/

Spectacular, Terry! I need to get out there and look at the sky again!

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solar_flare_031104.html Biggest solar flare ever. Let the above picture load, it takes a while.

Then the corona was hurled in to space.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/11/05/voyager.solar.boundary.ap/ Travelling one million miles a day, the Voyager 1 spacecraft is now out at the solar system's edge.

awesome!

And get this, from the article. Get this... The sun sends out a stream of highly charged particles, called the solar wind, that carves out a vast bubble around the solar system. Beyond the bubble's ever-shifting boundary, called the termination shock, lies a region where particles cast off by dying stars begin to hold sway. That region, called the heliopause, marks the beginning of interstellar space and the end of our solar system. Whether Voyager 1 reached that mark or is still on approach remains unclear, with scientists providing evidence for both claims. Details appear Thursday in the journal Nature. "Neither explanation is certain," writes Len Fisk, of the University of Michigan, in an editorial accompanying the two studies. YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Follow the news that matters to you. Create your own alert to be notified on topics you're interested in. Or, visit Popular Alerts for suggestions. Manage alerts | What is this? Scientists have long theorized that a shock wave exists where the hot solar wind bumps up against the thin gas of the interstellar medium. A similar shock wave precedes aircraft flying faster than the speed of sound, causing a sonic boom. In space, the violent encounter slows the solar wind from supersonic velocity to subsonic speed, and causes a pileup of particles. As they accumulate, the particles increase in temperature. Also, as they skip back and forth across the shock boundary, they are accelerated and energized. Scientists have pored over data from Voyager 1 for evidence of any of those activities, which would suggest the one-ton spacecraft has reached the termination shock. The one instrument that could measure the solar wind velocity and give somewhat of a definitive answer ceased working years ago. One team, studying lower energy particles, inferred that the solar wind velocity did tail off beginning in August 2002, suggesting Voyager 1 temporarily reached the termination shock.

termination shock Does not sound fun.

Tonight, November 8, there will be an eclipse of the moon, visibile in whole or in part throughout the continental United States.

we missed it (it was 8PM EST but we're PST)

oh, and i missed the meteor shower *sigh* where's marcia? i sent her an email but don't know if it made it. marcia, you take care of my twin!!

Where's Marcia? Beaming good energy her way.

This true color mosaic of Jupiter was constructed from images taken by the narrow angle camera onboard NASA's Cassini spacecraft on December 29, 2000, during its closest approach to the giant planet at a distance of approximately 10 million kilometers (6.2 million miles). It is the most detailed global color portrait of Jupiter ever produced; the smallest visible features are approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) across. The mosaic is composed of 27 images: nine images were required to cover the entire planet in a tic-tac-toe pattern, and each of those locations was imaged in red, green, and blue to provide true color. Although Cassini's camera can see more colors than humans can, Jupiter's colors in this new view look very close to the way the human eye would see them. Everything visible on the planet is a cloud. The parallel reddish-brown and white bands, the white ovals, and the large Great Red Spot persist over many years despite the intense turbulence visible in the atmosphere. The most energetic features are the small, bright clouds to the left of the Great Red Spot and in similar locations in the northern half of the planet. These clouds grow and disappear over a few days and generate lightning. Streaks form as clouds are sheared apart by Jupiter's intense jet streams that run parallel to the colored bands. The prominent dark band in the northern half of the planet is the location of Jupiter's fastest jet stream, with eastward winds of 480 kilometers (300 miles) per hour. Jupiter's diameter is eleven times that of Earth, so the smallest storms on this mosaic are comparable in size to the largest hurricanes on Earth. Unlike Earth, where only water condenses to form clouds, Jupiter's clouds are made of ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and water. The updrafts and downdrafts bring different mixtures of these substances up from below, leading to clouds at different heights. The brown and orange colors may be due to trace chemicals dredged up from deeper levels of the atmosphere, or they may be byproducts of chemical reactions driven by ultraviolet light from the Sun. Bluish areas, such as the small features just north and south of the equator, are areas of reduced cloud cover, where one can see deeper. For more information, see the Cassini Project home page, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and the Cassini imaging team home page, http://ciclops.org The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Cassini mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04866

Solar maximum is years past, yet the sun has been remarkably active lately. Is the sunspot cycle broken? FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/12nov_haywire.htm?list89800 ***************** A RECORD-BREAKING SOLAR FLARE & MID-LATITUDE AURORA WATCH At approximately 19:47 UTC (2:47 pm EST) on 04 November, active sunspot complex 10486 spawned what is probably the most intense x-ray flare in history. X-ray sensors on-board the GOES spacecraft are only capable of registering x-ray intensities up to a class X17.4 level. X-ray intensities beyond this level saturate the detectors. This solar flare saturated the x-ray detectors for 11 minutes, leaving space weather forecasters and scientists with some work to try and extrapolate the true intensity of the event. Based on a preliminary extrapolation, it appears that this x-ray flare peaked somewhere between the X30 and X40 levels, which was unheard of until yesterday and is possibly as much as twice as energetic as the X17 solar flare observed on 02 November. To place this event into historic perspective, it very likely ranks as the most powerful x-ray flare ever observed. During the last two weeks, active Region 10486 has produced three x-ray flares that have ranked within the top 10 of the most intense events in history. It has been quite a ride! Region 10486 has now rotated behind the western limb and out of view. It will now spend the next two weeks traversing the far side of the Sun. Whether it survives its passage on the far-side and returns to the eastern limb in two weeks in a form still capable of producing energetic events remains unknown. It is possible it could return in a form still capable of producing energetic events, but the odds are against it. Although only time will tell, observers on Earth will be able to monitor its progress indirectly by watching for coronal mass ejections that occur on the far side of the Sun, but are still visible from Earth via the SOHO LASCO cameras. Spectacular imagery of this solar flare and the associated high velocity coronal mass ejection are available from the SOHO web site: http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots A movie of the event in the light of hydrogen is also available from: http://www.spacew.com/x30ha.gif It is known that yesterdays remarkable solar flare was associated with a coronal mass ejection. The vast majority of mass thrown out was directed well to the west of the Earth. However, a small portion was also directed Earthward. That portion is expected to impact the Earth on 06 November. After the disturbance arrives, it may be capable of producing periods of minor to major geomagnetic and auroral storm activity. A disturbance as large as was observed on 29 and 30 October is not expected. Nevertheless, auroral activity could become visible from many middle latitude locations. A middle latitude aurora watch is active for 06 November. For North Americans, that is TONIGHT. Late tonight, near or after local midnight. Interference from the near-full moon will hamper attempts to view activity. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WATCH WATCH ISSUED: 20:15 UTC, 05 NOVEMBER 2003 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ VALID BEGINNING AT: 00:00 UTC ON 06 NOVEMBER VALID UNTIL: 23:00 UTC (7 pm EDT) ON 07 NOVEMBER PREDICTED IMPACT TIME OF DISTURBANCE: APPROX. 07:00 UTC ON 06 NOVEMBER, +/- AT LEAST SEVERAL HOURS SEVERAL HIGH RISK PERIOD: 06 NOVEMBER (UTC DAYS) MODERATE RISK PERIOD: 06 - 07 NOVEMBER PREDICTED ACTIVITY INDICES: 12, 35, 20, 15 (05 NOVEMBER - 08 NOVEMBER) POTENTIAL MAGNITUDE OF MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY: MODERATE POTENTIAL DURATION OF THIS ACTIVITY: MAIN BELT = 06 TO 12 HOURS MINOR BELT = 12 TO 18 HOURS ESTIMATED OPTIMUM OBSERVING CONDITIONS: NEAR AND AFTER LOCAL MIDNIGHT EXPECTED LUNAR INTERFERENCE: MODERATE OVERALL OPPORTUNITY FOR OBSERVATIONS FROM MIDDLE LATITUDES: FAIR TO GOOD AURORAL ACTIVITY *MAY* BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM... NORTHERN OREGON TO NORTHERN WYOMING TO SOUTH DAKOTA TO SOUTHERN MINNESOTA TO WISCONSIN TO MIGHIGAN TO NEW YORK STATE TO NEW HAMPSHIRE. ACTIVITY *MAY* ALSO BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY NORTH OF A LINE FROM... IRELAND TO CENTRAL UNITED KINGDOM TO EXTREME NORTHERN NETHERLANDS TO EXTREME NORTHERN GERMANY TO SOUTHERN SWEDEN TO SOUTHERN FINLAND TO NORTHERN RUSSIA. ACTIVITY *MAY* ALSO BE OBSERVED APPROXIMATELY SOUTH OF A LINE FROM... NEW ZEALAND AND EXTREME SOUTHEASTERN AUSTRALIA. SYNOPSIS... Effects of perhaps the largest x-ray solar flare on record are expected to impact the Earth sometime near 07:00 UTC on 06 November, give or take several hours. The solar flare occurred on the western limb of the Sun and as a result is not expected to produce significant effects at the Earth. However, the disturbance should have the strength to produce periods of auroral storming over the high and middle latitude regions. This watch will remain valid through 23:00 UTC (7 pm EDT) on 07 November. It will then be updated or allowed to expire. Most (if not all) of the activity is expected to occur within the first 6 to 12 hours after the disturbance impacts. For this reason, we don't expect very much on 07 November. For updated information, visit: http://www.spacew.com/aurora/forum.html. For real-time plots of current activity, visit: http://www.spacew.com/plots.html or www.sec.noaa.gov. PLEASE REPORT OBSERVATIONS OF AURORAL ACTIVITY TO: http://www.spacew.com/submitsighting.html

Thanks for posting the events, Terry! This was fantastic!!! Propagation was a poor as I thought it might be and airliners were kept below 25,000 feet and away from the poles to protect the passengers. I did hear that discussed by pilots and routing people.

DARK MATTER FORMS A GHOST UNIVERSE, NEW THEORY SHOWS ---------------------------------------------------- The "dark matter" that comprises a still-undetected one-quarter of the universe is not a uniform cosmic fog, says a University of California, Berkeley, astrophysicist, but instead forms dense clumps that move about like dust motes dancing in a shaft of light. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/06ghost/ TURBULENT NEIGHBORHOOD SEEN NEAR ERUPTIVE STAR ---------------------------------------------- A small portion of the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of swirling dust and gas near one of the most massive and eruptive stars in our galaxy is seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image. This close-up view shows only a three light-year-wide portion of the entire Carina Nebula, which has a diameter of over 200 light-years. Located 8,000 light-years from Earth, the nebula can be seen in the southern sky with the naked eye. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/06eruptivestar/ VOYAGER APPROACHING SOLAR SYSTEM'S OUTER LIMITS ----------------------------------------------- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is about to make history again. It is the first spacecraft to enter the solar system's final frontier, a vast expanse where wind from the sun blows hot against thin gas between the stars: interstellar space. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/05voyager/ ROSES IN THE SOUTHERN SKY ------------------------- The two best known satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, the Magellanic Clouds, are located in the southern sky at a distance of about 170,000 light-years. They host many giant nebular complexes with very hot and luminous stars whose intense ultraviolet radiation causes the surrounding interstellar gas to glow. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/05roses/ PROPOSED NASA EXPLORER MISSIONS SELECTED FOR STUDY -------------------------------------------------- NASA recently selected candidate mission proposals that would study the universe, from Jupiter and the sun to black holes and dark matter. The proposals are candidates for missions in NASA's Explorer Program of lower cost, highly focused, rapid-development scientific spacecraft. http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/05smex/

Where's the best place in Geo, Marci, to talk about the Earth's magnetic storms. Is this topic worthy?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3251382.stm Dusty disc may mean other Earths By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Astronomers say they have evidence for Earth-like planets orbiting a nearby star, making it more like our own Solar System than any yet discovered. The star, Vega, is one of the brightest in the sky, only 25 light-years away. It is three times larger than our Sun and, at 350 million years old, much younger as well. Vega has a disc of dust circling it, and at least one large planet which could sweep debris aside allowing smaller worlds like Earth to exist.

Here, or Mike's Gaia toopic. His is dedicated to ionospheric things and electromagnetic phenomena. In a day or two, more CME ionization should reach us. Aurora watch!

I did hear about the Vega system - on Art Bell's program, no less.

Vega was also the signal source area from 'Contact' Also, the source for the Chevy Vega... ;) de Mike

Wow, Mike. That's right about the movie. Jodie Foster went to the Vegan system. Or did she?

Black holes are raining down on Earth and exploding! http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031204/12/eg99n.html Are mini black holes raining down through the Earth's atmosphere? It is possible, says a team of physicists. They think this could explain mysterious observations from mountain-top experiments over the past 30 years. Ordinary black holes form when stars explode at the end of their lives. The heavy stellar core can collapse into a superdense "singularity" whose gravity is so strong that nothing - not even light - can escape. If some of physicists' favourite theories about extra dimensions are correct, it would also be possible for high-energy cosmic-ray particles from space to create black holes when they collide with molecules in the Earth's atmosphere ( New Scientist print edition, 29 September 2001). These black holes would be invisibly small, with a mass of only 10 micrograms or so. And they would be so unstable that they would explode in a burst of particles within around a billion-billion-billionth of a second.

a superdense "singularity" whose gravity is so strong that nothing - not even light - can escape finally, an explanation for bill o'reilly

That's good Nick. That's good.

The Euro Mars Mission will land Christmas Day: http://www.esa.int/export/SPECIALS/Mars_Express/index.html The lander sports "a pair of stereo cameras, a microscope, two types of spectrometer (Mossbauer and X-ray) and a torch to illuminate surfaces. The PAW also houses the corer/grinder and 'the mole', two instruments for collecting rock and soil samples for analysis." The NASA rovers will land Jan 3 and Jan 24: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mer

Christmas Sunset Look west as night falls on Dec. 25th for a lovely pairing of brilliant Venus and the crescent moon. FULL STORY at http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/09dec_sunset.htm?list89800

Thanks for the story on Mars landing. I deleted mine by accident!