-A lunar landmark and a solar success
Nasa's announcement last week that the Lunar Prospector space-probe has detected large quantities of water on the moon transforms it from sterile lumps of rock into a potential oasis and rocket fuelling station.Water on the moon could make it possible to build a permanent lunar base thet would produce rocket …
-Asteroid on a collision course
An asteroid described as "the most dangerous one we've found so far" may be on course for a 2028 AD collision with earth and certainly will pass closer than any such object in modern times, astronomers said. "The chance of an actual collision is small, but one is not entirely …
- Light from tiny galaxy reveals most distant object ever seen from Earth
Light from a misshapen galaxy on the other side of the universe indicates that it is the most distant object ever seen from Earth, astronomers said. Using the world's largest telescopes, at the Keck Observartory in Hawaii, researchers said they noticed the unusual object while observing other objects in deep …
- There might be an old man on the moon after all
The recent discovery of "water ice" at the poles of the moon has spawned considerable debate regarding the prospect of there being life on the sole natural satellite of the earth. While starting that even at the poles on earth there is a mass of teeming life form, Dr Nirupama …
- Pathfinder is officially dead, Nasa says sadly
After more than five fruitless months, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's scientists declared the Pathfinder spacecraft officially dead after a last-ditch attempt to communicate with the Little Rover and Lander that made history last summer. Up to the final "time to death" at 1.21 pm, they held out hope …
- ISRO signs pact with UN centre
India has formally won the race to host the UN Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTE-AP), an international cooperative training venture. The host country agreement was signed between the UN centre and the Department of Space at Ahmedabad on Tuesday, ISRO said in …
- Asteroid is expected to make a pass close to Earth in 2028
An asteroid is likely to pass within 30,000 miles of Earth on Oct 26, 2028, and there is a possibility that it would hit Earth, the international astronomical agency (Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory) that tallies the orbits of asteroids and comets announced.
- Europe bid for Mars mission
European scientists are working on a new project to make up for the failure of their unmanned mission to Mars 16 months ago. When the Russian probe Mars 96 failed to leave the earth's gravity and crashed into the Pacific Ocean in November 1996, some $180 million worth of experiments …
- Nasa scientists attempt to contact Pathfinder on Mars
Engineers and scientists at Nasa's jet propulsion laboratory will make a final report to regain contact with Pathfinder on Tuesday, listening for a radio signal orginating from so far way it would take 19 1/2 minutes to reach earth. Pathfinder landed on July 4 and transmitted intriguing images and atmospheric …
- Voyager spacecraft nears limit of sun's influence
Voyager spacecraft is focussed on the unknown territory ahead, hurtling at 39,000 miles an hour toward so called termination shock, the uncharted zone where the sun's magnetic influence ends in a collision with the interstellar wind. Twenty one years after leaving Earth, Voyager I has become the most remote human …
- Scientists make nanocrystals
Scientists at the University of Madras have prepared nanocrystals, crystals as tiny as one billionth of a metre, that are one of the frontier areas of worldwide research. A team headed by S Ramasamy prepared crystals about 10 nanometres in size of several materials that include zinc oxide, zirconia, barium …
- Cosmic puffery
The recent discovery of an anti-gravity force, which is causing the universe to expand at an accelerated rate, if confirmed, shall provide a delightful testemonial to the power of the human mind to grapple with the unthinkable.The roots of the "discovery" go back to Albert Einstein's formulation of general relativity(editorial).
- BARC crosses another milestone in nuclear research
A seminar held in Mumbai on Thursday on 'Physics with Cooled and Trapped Atoms and Ions (PCTAI-98)' is the first meeting in the exotic field of cooled and trapped atoms and ions, organised in India. Scientists from national laboratories and experts from abroad were present. This area of research is …
- There's enough water on the moon to support a colony
The US space agency announced on Thursday that an orbiting robot craft has discovered that there may be enough water on the moon to one day support a human colony there and to use the lunar base as a rocket fuelling station for exploration into deep space. "This means that …
- The galactic gourmand
In January Steven Majewski of the University of Virginia and his colleagues announced that they had found a suspicious excess of stars of the same colour and brightness as those in Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy, or Sgr for short, stretching away from it in a long tail. This summer they …
- New sub-atomic particle detected
Almost two years after its prediction, an exotic and bizarre sub-atomic particle called the anomalon has finally been tracked down by an India-born US scientist. The new particle, discovered by Piyare Jain, from the University of Buffalo, USA, will throw light on many mysteries of science including quark-gluon plasma which …
- Collins named first female shuttle commander
Astronaut Eileen Collins will become the first woman to command a Space Shuttle when Columbia launches on the STS-93 mission in December 1998. During the five day mission, the crew will deploy the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility Imaging System, which will conduct comprehensive studies of the universe.
- Space walk called off
Mission Control has cancelled a six-hour space walk by the two Russian cosmonauts aboard Mir after the pair were unable to open the hatch leading into open space. Flight Commander Vladimir Solovyev said a decision to reschedule the space walk for early April was made after cosmonauts Talgat Musabayev and …
- Water on Jupiter's moon
Photographs sent back by the space probe Galileo offer new evidence that Jupiter's moon Europe has a massive ocean under its icy surface. The photos, which were taken in December, show a crater, a textured surface that could be an iceberg and an icy crust between massive plates of ice, …
