Topic: Space - on December 6, 2003 at 11:01:17 PM CET
See Saturn Closest to Earth in 30 Years
On New Years Eve the Lord of the Rings will be closer to Earth and brighter than at any time in three decades. All month long skywatchers can enjoy Saturn at its finest. A similar opportunity won't come again for another 30 years.
If in 2003 we had the Summer of Mars, this will be the Winter of Saturn.
On Dec. 31, Saturn will be opposite the Sun in relation to Earth. That means from our planet, Saturn will rise as the Sun sets, reaching its highest point in the southern sky at midnight and setting as the Sun rises. Astronomers call this opposition.
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Topic: Space - on November 21, 2003 at 3:58:52 PM CET
Solar Hurricane Hits Earth in Repeat of Oct Storm
Magnetic solar hurricanes like those that wreaked havoc last month have hit Earth again, confusing satellites and causing aurora borealis displays as far south as Florida, Finnish meteorologists said on Friday. "The storm has already begun, and last night it grew incredibly strong," said Heikki Nevanlinna, research manager at the Finnish Meteorological Institute told
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Topic: Space - on November 20, 2003 at 11:05:47 PM CET
Controversial New Claim in Death-by-Asteroid Case
A longstanding mystery over what caused five great mass extinctions, including one that destroyed the dinosaurs, has grown with the release of two studies today in the journal Science.
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Topic: Space - on November 19, 2003 at 12:56:01 AM CET
Leonid Meteors, 2003
Leonid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight into Wednesday Morning
The Leonid meteor shower will peak late tonight into early Wednesday, hurling bits of ancient comet debris into Earth's atmosphere. While it will not match grand displays of recent years, the 2003 version is expected to provide a good number of shooting stars and a handful of spectacularly bright fireballs. Weather permitting, skywatchers with dark skies could see a shooting star every minute or two. City and suburban dwellers will see much lower rates.
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Topic: Space - on November 7, 2003 at 1:53:05 AM CET
Latest Sun Flare Put at X28, Strongest on Record
NOAA's Space Environment Center (SEC) has classified this flare as an X28, making it in fact the strongest ever recorded. A source told SPACE.com that the SEC is aware other scientists still think the flare was even stronger. The article below remains as it originally appeared.
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Topic: Space - on November 4, 2003 at 11:20:15 PM CET
Milky Way welcomes its closest galactic neighbor by eating it
An international team of astronomers has found a previously unknown galaxy colliding with our own Milky Way.
Called the Canis Major dwarf galaxy after the constellation in which it lies, the star grouping is about 25,000 light-years away from our Solar System.
The new galaxy is shown in red ¬> bbc ¬> newscientist
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Topic: Space - on April 20, 2003 at 10:39:57 AM CEST
Private manned space plane unveiled
Fully-built spacecraft, launch system developed in secrecy SOME OF THE BIGGEST names in space, including astronaut Buzz Aldrin, space tourist Dennis Tito and military officials, were on hand for Friday’s demonstration at the Mojave Airport, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. In its first public flight, the White Knight lifted steeply off the windswept tarmac, framed in the distance by dozens of mothballed commercial airliners.
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Topic: - on January 22, 2003 at 10:55:49 AM CET
Why Mars will be So Close to Earth in August
Anyone who had a Spirograph drawing toy as a kid has a head start in grasping why Earth and Mars will be closer to each other this August than ever in recorded history. The drawing wheels with the little toothy gears were very simple, yet they produced amazingly complex patterns that seemed to change, ever so slightly, for as long as you kept them moving.
The relationship in space between Earth and Mars is never exactly repeated either. Each planet orbits the Sun on its own elliptical path, and those paths actually rotate through space over thousands of years.
¬> Space
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Topic: - on January 15, 2003 at 10:01:41 AM CET
Cosmic message in a bottle
A cosmic "message in a bottle" is to be left in space as a relic of the world's languages. A disc engraved with the first three chapters of Genesis in 1,000 native tongues will travel to a distant comet. It will be carried on the European Space Agency's (Esa) Rosetta mission, set for take-off some time in 2003.
¬> <a href="news.bbc.co.uk"target="_blank">BBC
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Topic: - on December 29, 2002 at 5:18:10 PM CET
Top 10 Space Mysteries for 2003
The funny thing about discoveries is that they often produce new mysteries, too. This year was no exception, as many remarkable space science findings generated puzzling problems for astronomers to look into. In some cases the puzzles are brand new. Other times a discovery merely confirms how little we knew. Either way, there's plenty for astronomers to do. Here then are the Top 10 Space Mysteries that astronomers will be pondering in the New Year and beyond:
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Topic: - on December 21, 2002 at 1:30:24 AM CET
Hubble sees birth of tiny 'Pox' galaxy
A tiny, late-blooming galaxy -- a distorted clump of gas and stars whose development lags far behind its galactic cousins -- has been captured in Hubble Space Telescope images released this week.
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Topic: - on December 20, 2002 at 9:59:39 AM CET
Naked-eye Comet for the New Year
Comet watchers are getting a celestial gift this holiday season. Over the weekend, two Japanese amateurs independently spotted an unidentified comet that's already about 7th magnitude and is expected to become visible to the naked eye by New Year's Day.
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