News about astronomy and viewing the night sky. 02-MAR-07 en-us Tucson AZ (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - Scientists were startled when they discovered in 2004 that the center of our galaxy is emitting gamma rays with energies in the tens of trillions of electronvolts. Now astrophysicists at The University of Arizona, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Adelaide (Australia) have discovered a mechanism that might produce these high-energy gamma rays.]]> Redondo Beach CA (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) successfully completed critical design review, giving Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) the green-light to complete building flight hardware for the mission. As prime contractor, Northrop Grumman is building and integrating LCROSS for NASA Ames Research Center.]]> Huntsville AL (SPX) Feb 28, 2007 - A team of scientists and engineers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) are conducting research that could one day save humanity from asteroids threatening Earth.]]> Antarctica (SPX) Feb 28, 2007 - Scientists aimed the South Pole Telescope at Jupiter on the evening of Feb. 16 and successfully collected the instrument's first test observations. Soon, far more distant quarry will fall under the SPT's sights as a team from nine institutions tackles one of the biggest mysteries of modern cosmological research. That mystery: What is dark energy, the force that dominates the universe?]]> Paris, France (ESO) Feb 28, 2007 - The ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer, which allows astronomers to scrutinise objects with a precision equivalent to that of a 130-m telescope, is proving itself an unequalled success every day. One of the latest instruments installed, AMBER, has led to a flurry of scientific results, an anthology of which is being published this week as special features in the research journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.]]> Paris, France (ESA) Feb 28, 2007 - ESA's Mars Express and Venus Express missions, to explore our nearest neighbour planets Mars and Venus respectively, will continue to operate until early-May 2009. The decision was unanimously taken by ESA's Science Programme Committee last Friday.]]> Moffett Field CA (SPX) Feb 27, 2007 - In 2005, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology and his team discovered a large body in the outer solar system. It was not the first distant object that had been found in the Kuiper Belt -- the region is composed of hundreds of icy objects. But it was the largest known Kuiper Belt object, just beating out Pluto in terms of size, and so their discovery was heralded as "the tenth planet."]]> Paris, France (ESA) Feb 27, 2007 - Within a few weeks, ESA will invite the scientific community to propose the first missions for Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. The first medium-class mission should be launched in the 2016-2017 timeframe at the latest. The first large mission is targeted to launch in autumn 2018.]]> Laurel MD (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - NASA's New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Jupiter early this morning, using the massive planet's gravity to pick up speed on its 3-billion mile voyage to Pluto and the unexplored Kuiper Belt region beyond. "We're on our way to Pluto," says New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Md. "The swingby was a success; the spacecraft is on course and performed just as we expected."]]> Washington DC (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - Lucky skywatchers will witness a total lunar eclipse on Saturday evening, March 3rd. However, where you live will dictate whether you'll get to enjoy this grand celestial spectacle in prime time -- or watch the full Moon rise after it's all over. In the U.S. and Canada, the eclipse strongly favors those east of the Mississippi River, who'll see the Moon completely engulfed by Earth's shadow as night falls. Farther west, the Moon is only partly in shadow by the time it rises (at sunset).]]> Poway CA (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - SpaceDev announced today that its subsidiary, Starsys, Inc., has been awarded a $1.4 million cost reimbursable design and development subcontract with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in support of the Mars Science Laboratory mission. Starsys will develop and deliver electromechanical Descent Brake dampers. The contract period of performance is approximately 18 months.]]> Heslington, UK (SPX) Mar 01, 2007 - Professor Sam Braunstein, of the University of York's Department of Computer Science, and Dr Arun Pati, of the Institute of Physics, Sainik School, Bhubaneswar, India, have established that quantum information cannot be 'hidden' in conventional ways, or in Braunstein's words, "quantum information can run but it can't hide." This result gives a surprising new twist to one of the great mysteries about black holes.]]> Ithaca NY (SPX) Feb 28, 2007 - Dr. Mason Peck from the Cornell University College of Engineering received a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I $75,000 award to study an innovative idea for altering spacecraft orbits in future missions. His paper, Lorentz-Actuated Orbits: Electrodynamic Propulsion without a Tether, made a compelling case for merging the small-scale physics of dust moving in a plasma and large-scale physics of planetary orbits to enable propellant-less spacecraft propelled by planetary magnetic fields.]]> http://www.terradaily.com/terradaily.xml]]>