24/7 News Coverage
December 31, 2009
Blue Moon Rounds Out The Decade
Los Angeles (SPX) Dec 30, 2009
As twilight descends on New Year's Eve of 2009, a full Moon will rise in the eastern sky for the second time this month (the first time came on December 2nd). Many people use the expression "once in a blue Moon" to mean something that occurs rarely, and you might be tempted to call December 31st's full Moon a "Blue Moon" too. While the former meaning can be traced back centuries, the latter definition is much newer - and it's wrong! "In modern usage, the second full Moon in a month has come to be called a 'Blue Moon.' But it's not!" says Kelly Beatty, Senior Contributing Editor for Sky and Telescope magazine. "This colorful term is actually a calendrical goof that worked its way into the pages of Sky and Telescope back in March 1946, and it spread to the world from there." ... read more

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Cassini Spacecraft To Monitor North Pole On Titan
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Chinese Scientists Seek Support For Dark Matter Mission In Space
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China To Launch Chang'e-2 Satellite At The End Of 2010
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Naval Research Lab Studies Solar Storms
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Memory Foam Mattress Review & Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison

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Voyager Makes An Interstellar Discovery
Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 30, 2009
The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery. "Using data from Voyager, we have discovered a strong magnetic field just outside the solar system," explains lead author Merav Opher, a NASA Heliophysics Guest Investigator from Ge ... more

Cassini Team Showcase Saturn Moon Movies And Raw Images
Boulder CO (SPX) Dec 28, 2009
Like sugar plum fairies in "The Nutcracker," the moons of Saturn performed a celestial ballet before the eyes of NASA's Cassini spacecraft. New movies frame the moons' silent dance against the majestic sweep of the planet's rings and show as many as four moons gliding around one another. To celebrate the holidays, the Cassini imaging team has created a video collection of "mutual events," ... more

Curtain falling on 'Digital Decade'
Washington (AFP) Dec 27, 2009
While it got off to a rocky start with the overhyped Y2K bug and dotcom bubble, the era dubbed the "Digital Decade" by Microsoft's Bill Gates has turned out to be a dizzying period of innovation. "It's been an amazingly vibrant decade for the Internet and for digital things in general," said John Abell, New York bureau chief of Wired magazine, which has chronicled the technological leaps and bounds of the past 10 years. "People simply don't exist in a non-digital world at all," Abell told AFP. "Even grandmothers and Luddites all have tools and devices - even if they don't realize they're using them - which connect them to a digital world." ... more

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Vampires And Collisions Rejuvenate Stars


Stellar Mosh Pit Of Crashing Stars Resolves A Mystery


Instant online solar energy quotes

Solar Energy Solutions from ABC Solar
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Chinese Scientists Seek Support For Dark Matter Mission In Space

Vampires And Collisions Rejuvenate Stars

Stellar Mosh Pit Of Crashing Stars Resolves A Mystery

Avatar Moon Pandora Could Be Real

Astronomers Find World With Inhospitable Atmosphere And Icy Heart

First Super-Earths Discovered Around Sun-Like Stars

You couldn't make it up: offbeat stories from 2009

Events that marked the start of the 21st century

Large Hadron Collider shut down until February

Icy Moons Of Saturn And Jupiter May Have Conditions Needed For Life

Uracil Made In The Lab

Detecting Life-Friendly Moons

Kansas Scientists Probe Mysterious Possible Comet Strikes On Earth

Dawn Enters The Asteroid Belt

Restoration Of HAYABUSA's Return Cruise

Wise Space Telescope Jettisons Its Cover

Prepping WISE To Pop Its Lens Cap

Initial Results From Herschel's Science Demonstration Phase

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Studying The Surface Of Titan
Fayetteville AK (SPX) Dec 23, 2009
A University of Arkansas scientist has received funding from NASA to simulate conditions found on Saturn's moon Titan to help better understand the origins of the liquids found on its surface and in its atmosphere. Vincent Chevrier, assistant research professor in the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, conducted preliminary studies in a planetary environmental simulation ... more

Kansas Scientists Probe Mysterious Possible Comet Strikes On Earth
Lawrence KS (SPX) Dec 22, 2009
It's the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plunges from outer space into the Earth's atmosphere, splitting the sky with a devastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes the countryside. But this isn't a disaster movie plotline. "Comet impacts might be much more frequent than we expect," said Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas. ... more

Avatar Moon Pandora Could Be Real
Boston MA (SPX) Dec 22, 2009
In the new blockbuster Avatar, humans visit the habitable - and inhabited - alien moon called Pandora. Life-bearing moons like Pandora or the Star Wars forest moon of Endor are a staple of science fiction. With NASA's Kepler mission showing the potential to detect Earth-sized objects, habitable moons may soon become science fact. If we find them nearby, a new paper by Smithsonian ... more

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Space Debris A Concern In Satellite Launch


Brown Dwarf Pair Mystifies Astronomers


A Reflecting Surface Of A Lake On Saturn's Moon Titan
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Refurbished computers aid Kenyan farmers

Guinea's junta celebrates first year in power

Security chiefs 'dominate diamond trade'

Chinese car park makes space for women only

Geely's Volvo bid highlights China's global car ambition

Swedish press sceptical on Chinese takeover of Volvo

You couldn't make it up: offbeat stories from 2009

Events that marked the start of the 21st century

Large Hadron Collider shut down until February

Mini-Research Module MRM1 At Cape For Shuttle Processing

Astronauts Dock At ISS

Expedition 22 Keeps Busy While Awaiting Additional Crew Members

Shuttle Endeavour readied for a space trip

Space shuttle Atlantis lands back on Earth

Atlantis Ready For Landing Friday

Rocket-Motor Test Supports NASA, DOD And Commercial Missions

New Materials Designed To Deal With Hypersonic And Supersonic Hot Stuff

Milt Thompson's Wild Ride

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A Blue Moon For New Year's Eve

Meteor Hunt In Beijing Continues

Solar Ultraviolet Imager For GOES-R Satellite Passes CDR

Scientist Uncovers Relics Of Ancient Cosmos

Earth's moon gets down to -416F

Astronomers Find World With Inhospitable Atmosphere And Icy Heart

Supernova Explosions Stay In Shape

Messenger Team Releases First Global Map of Mercury

Sunglint Confirms Liquid In Titan Northern Lake District

Large Hadron Collider shut down until February

Inside The Dark Heart Of The Eagle

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Hubble's Festive View of a Grand Star-Forming Region

Images of Chi Cygni reveal Sol's fate

LHC Produces First Physics Results

Icy Moons Of Saturn And Jupiter May Have Conditions Needed For Life

A New Way To Shine, A New Kind Of Star

First Super-Earths Discovered Around Sun-Like Stars

Astronomy Question Of The Week: Where Are The Nearest Islands Of Stars

Born In Beauty: Proplyds In The Orion Nebula

Galaxy Collision Switches On Black Hole

No Need To Worry On Solar Storm In 2012

Low Mass Planets May Be Common Around Nearby Stars

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