Comet Awards and Their Social Impact
On October 1, 1847, while sweeping for comets on the roof of her father's
home on Nantucket, Massachusetts, Maria Mitchell moved her telescope 5° above
Polaris and promptly discovered a new visitor. The 29-year-old woman, who had
been searching long hours unsuccessfully on every clear night, now walked
demurely downstairs, her heart undoubtedly pounding with excitement, to inform
her parents and their guests of her find.
For her achievement Mitchell became the first American (and woman) to receive a
gold medal the following year. The prize, instituted in 1831 by the Danish king
Frederick VI, was for all discoveries of new telescopic comets. Mitchell joined
the ranks of a dozen other distinguished gold medalists around the world,
New Galaxy Redshift Record
This week astronomers announced the highest redshift reported so far for a celestial object. Hsiao-Wen Chen, Kenneth M. Lanzetta, and Sebastian Pascarelle (State University of New York, Stony Brook) write in the April 15th issue of Nature about finding a magnitude 27.7 blip in Ursa Major that appears to be a galaxy with a redshift of z = 6.68. (more...)A space solar power? A futuristic project that could become reality
Boasting a large number of funding from the federal government under Obama will double the amount of energy produced from renewable sources [1], the solar wind in its sails. Yet despite its enormous promise, technological spillovers are still very limited. One major problem remains the need for continuous power,
The Indian space program based on country needs
According G Madhavan Nair former Director of ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) India does not look the other Asian countries (China and Japan) as competitors in the field of space but is developing a space program adapted to needs. These programs are based on practical needs of Indians as health and education.
South Africa looks to space
Naledi Pandor, Minister of Science and Technology, confirms the sessions of parliament that South Africa by investing in satellites and telescopes, aiming to become a regional center for space technology.
Creation of five professorships in international astronomy
The Ministry of Science and Technology funding five professorships in international astronomy for a total of 240 million rand (22 million euros) over 15 years. The universities of Cape (UCT), Stellenbosch, Rhodes, Witwatersrand and Western Cape (UWC) are looking for internationally recognized researchers to take the lead in these chairs.
Series expansion of the satellite platform SPRINT JAXA
At a symposium held November 26 at Miraikan in Tokyo, the Japanese Space Agency has provided more information on the small satellite platform called SPRINT (Small Space Science Innovative Platform for Rapid experimenNT), intended to be mass-produced Take out the next mission scientists Japanese small.
Mars would have had a great ocean in the past
AOL Latino News & Agencies) .- A new map of the valleys of Mars developed by Northern Illinois University, next to the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston supports the theory that an ocean covered the red planet’s northern hemisphere.The technique used to map the Martian terrain is an innovative computer program to produce a [...]
PROGRESS launches new vans to the space station (current)
Freighter was equipped with new enhancements, which also in future Soyuz capsules are to find application 25. November 2008 A new type revalued Russian cargo transporter was today launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz-U rocket with the Progress M-01M on its head took off at 13:38 CET Clock from the launch pad. [...]
Kepler photographed his first planet hunting ground
“First Light” image of the new Space Telescope shows the region with millions of stars 16. April 2009 NASA’s new space telescope Kepler has fired his first shot of the star-rich region in the sky, where it will soon begin the search for Earth-like planets. This first recording, also known as “First Light” for the [...]
A clown in space
The Soyuz TMA-16, he shared with a Russian cosmonaut and an American astronaut, has left its launch pad as scheduled at 07:14 AM GMT. The former fire-eater, aged 50, who was offered the trip of 12 days in orbit for $ 35 million dollars, became the seventh “space tourist”.
The docking with the ISS is scheduled [...]
The Chinese Raumfahrtptogramm
The beginning of the Chinese space program is closely linked with the name Qian Xuese. Trained at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in rocket technology and as a colonel in the U.S. ballistic missile program, collected Qian Xuese first experience that made him after his return to China in 1955, most Chinese scholars in [...]
The X Prize Project
The X Prize project should give the go-ahead for the large-scale space tourism and challenged the most talented entrepreneurs and rocket experts in the world to compete. The goal was nothing less than the first private spaceflight in history, which was decided in October 2004 by SpaceShipOne, the company Scaled Composites.
NASA begins countdown for launch of Discovery
Washington, Aug 21 (EFE) .- The engineers at NASA today set in motion the countdown for Discovery’s departure on a mission to the International Space Station (ISS), which for the first time in history to have two ferries Hispanic crew.The countdown began at 2300 local time Friday (0300 GMT Saturday) at a time when the [...]
Comet Wild 2 contained a brick of life, glycine
After analysis of the patients in regard to the collectors of the Stardust mission, due to his overview of the comet Wild 2, a group of scientists from NASA claims to have discovered glycine, an amino acid essential for terrestrial life forms. Remember, in January 2004 the Stardust mission flew the comet [...]
