Discovery News

Atlantis docks at Space Station

space#topic

Astronauts have unloaded a huge platform of spare parts onto the International Space Station after the shuttle Atlantis arrived for a week’s stay.

Heavy collections of pumps, storage tanks and other devices needed to keep the outpost running for another 10 years were unloaded from the platform, measuring 16 feet by 14 feet.

Robot arms helped to unload the weighty equipment, two hours after the link-up, 220 miles above the Pacific between Australia and Tasmania.

Nasa launches 'spaceworm' flight

space#topic

Muscle development is being studied by sending thousands of microscopic worms into space on the latest shuttle, the University of Nottingham has announced.

The mollusc passengers - traced to a rubbish dump in Bristol - are aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, which was launched from Cape Canaveral this week, and will help physiology experts at the British university understand how the body loses and builds muscle.

They will be studied in the Kibo lab on the International Space Station during the study. Nottingham's Dr Nathaniel Szewczyk, from the university's Institute of Clinical Research in Derby, will use the worms to study the signals controlling muscle protein degradation.

More water on moon than expected

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Water on the moon may be more widespread and in greater quantities than previously thought, according to Nasa.

The findings from an experiment involving a rocket smashing into the surface of earth's satellite has pleased scientists. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was fired into the lunar crust on October 9 and created a 1.6km-high two-part plume from the Cabeus crater.

The materials unearthed had been untouched by sunlight for billions of years, according to scientists. Examination of the blast now suggests that there is more water on the moon than previously believed.

Experts see 'youngest' neutron star

space#topic

Astronomers have observed the youngest known neutron star - the super-dense core of a stellar explosion - for the first time.

In 1999, they identified the 12.4 mile-wide object as a powerful X-ray source. Now they have identified it as an infant neutron star 11,000 light years from Earth in the middle of the supernova Cassiopeia A.

Having appeared only 330 years ago, it is the youngest object of its kind to have been discovered. All other known neutron stars are much older.

Dead Star Encased in Diamond Shroud

space

Nov. 5, 2009 -- Astronomers have just solved a decade-old mystery that explains the unusual behavior of a neutron star -- the dense, hot corpse left behind after a massive stellar explosion -- at the center of the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant.

It wasn't the X-rays streaming from the center of the supernova remnant that astronomers found puzzling. It's why the beams weren't pulsating as expected. Now the scientists know why: The neutron star is covered with a thin atmosphere of carbon, which acts like a giant bulb to smooth light in all directions.

The findings help to illustrate the extreme nature of these entities.

'Cosmic Web' of Galaxies Holds Universe Together

space

Nov. 5, 2009 -- Astronomers have for the first time seen part of the "cosmic web" of galaxies that holds together the known universe, some seven billion light-years from Earth.

Viewed through the world's most powerful telescopes, the discovery "is the first observation of such a prominent galaxy structure in the distant universe, providing further insight into the cosmic web and how it formed," according to a statement by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

The assembly of galaxies form filaments "millions of light years long and constitute the skeleton of the universe," it says.

Gamma Ray 'Race' Proves Einstein Right Again

space

Nov. 4, 2009 -- Timing is everything, especially to physicists seeking to unite the mechanics of gravity with the quantum world of particles.

So when the opportunity came to measure if gamma rays of different energies traveled at the same speed, a team of physicists stepped up to the challenge.

At stake was nothing less than a foundation of modern physics -- Einstein's theory of relativity, which posits that all electromagnetic radiation travels at the same speed, whether low-energy radio waves, high-energy X-rays or gamma rays, or any wavelength in between.

Probe to Track Warming's Effects on Water

space

Nov. 2, 2009 -- Hoping to untangle a key mechanism by which Earth warms and cools, a new satellite will for the first time make ongoing measurements of the saltiness of Earth's seas and the water content of the land.

The salinity of the oceans is believed to be responsible for pockets of cooler temperatures, particularly in the North Atlantic, though on a global scale the planet is warming, said Meric Srokosz with the National Oceanography Center in Southampton and a lead researcher on the new mission known as Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity, or SMOS.

"You can get a local cooling effect," Srokosz told Discovery News. "It doesn't mean there's no global warming. Eventually the North Atlantic will also get warmer."

NASA to Start Irradiating Monkeys

space

Oct. 29, 2009 -- NASA is stepping up its space radiation studies with a round of experiments that for the first time in decades will use monkeys as subjects.

The point of the experiments is to understand how the harsh radioactive environment of space affects human bodies and behavior and what countermeasures can be developed to make long-duration spaceflight safe for travelers beyond Earth's protective magnetic shield.

For the new study, 18 to 28 squirrel monkeys will be exposed to a low dose of the type of radiation that astronauts traveling to Mars can expect to encounter.

NASA's Ares Flies; Commercial Falcon Follows

space

Oct. 29, 2009 -- Following NASA's successful test flight of its new Ares rocket, a commercial company will attempt to demonstrate it too has the right stuff to launch astronauts into orbit.

Just down the road from where NASA's Ares I-X demo rocket blasted off is a new launch complex built by California-based Space Exploration Technologies, which is preparing for the debut flight of its Falcon 9 rocket.

The company this month test-fired the cluster of nine engines needed to power the Falcon's flight and plans to ship the rocket to Cape Canaveral in November. Launch is targeted for early next year.