> Hi Thierry ,
>
> thank you very much for this science report.
>
> I think the ESA is doing some great science ! the next 10 years will see some
> great scientific discoveries !
>
> Best wishes to Thierry in Belgium , from byron in Canada

Thanks Byron.
Greetings and best wishes from Belgium too.

Proba workshop: small satellite yielding beautiful results

24 March 2005

In orbit for three and a half years now, ESA's smallest Earth Observation satellite is making a big contribution to science, a workshop heard this week. Proba applications range from studying land vegetation to water quality monitoring, assessing productivity of Italian vineyards, even helping hunt for meteorite impact craters.
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Last hardware needed for ATV arrival installed during ISS spacewalk

29 March 2005

The last outstanding hardware needed before arrival of the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the European-built ISS supply ship due for launch in 2006, has been installed outside the International Space Station (ISS) during a 4 1/2 hour Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) on Monday 28 March.
..................

> Last hardware
> needed for ATV arrival installed during ISS spacewalk
>
> 29 March 2005
>
> The last outstanding hardware needed before arrival of the Automated Transfer
> Vehicle (ATV), the European-built ISS supply ship due for launch in 2006, has
> been installed outside the International Space Station (ISS) during a 4 1/2
> hour Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) on Monday 28 March.
> ..................

This is a good development for the ISS. The ATV will be a another very important test for automated supply delivery in space. Thanks for that Thierry.

More awesome Mars images from Mars Express

This image has to be the most awesome planetary image I've ever seen.

> <a> href="http://esamultimedia.esa.int/images/marsexpress/155-090205-03340360-4-3d-01-OphirChasma_Hires.jpg">More
> awesome Mars images from Mars Express[/url]
>
> This image has to be the most awesome planetary image I've ever seen.
======================================================
Alex, A remarkable find, out of thousands of photos, this is clearly one for intensive study.

There is the appearance of former waterfalls, and erosion, very much like dry river beds. But the bottom of the photo looks like water, or at least something very like it.

No wonder JPL and NASA are all excited from the results of this exploration.

The more we learn, the less we know.

Thank you again Alex for your efforts, truly outstanding!

---

Have a Great Day,
Eliz.

> > More
> > awesome Mars images from Mars Express
> >
> > This image has to be the most awesome planetary image I've ever seen.
> ======================================================
> Alex, A remarkable find, out of thousands of photos, this is clearly one for
> intensive study.
>
> There is the appearance of former waterfalls, and erosion, very much like dry
> river beds. But the bottom of the photo looks like water, or at least
> something very like it.
>
> No wonder JPL and NASA are all excited from the results of this exploration.
>
> The more we learn, the less we know.
>
> Thank you again Alex for your efforts, truly outstanding!
>
>
>

Thank you Eliz. Yes, I did notice the appearance of some of those things that you mentioned. I think all this data is going to have the exogeologists and scientists examining these pictures working for a long time.

There is also another very nice picture recently taken by Mars Express. I shows what appears to be layers of water ice and dust at the Martian north polar ice cap.

Europe goes back to Mars

8 April 2005

PR 19-2005. European space scientists have strongly recommended a mission equipped with a Rover as the next scientific mission to Mars as part of the European Space Agency’s [ESA] Aurora programme of planetary exploration.

The mission would conduct a detailed analysis of the Martian environment and search for traces of past or present life. A launch in June 2011, followed by a two year journey, would arrive on the Red Planet in June 2013. A detailed proposal will be prepared for consideration by ESA member states at the agency’s Council Meeting at Ministerial Level in December 2005.
....................

Really Big Telescopes are Coming

Summary - (Apr 8, 2005) If you think current telescopes are powerful, just you wait. A new class of observatories are in the works that could sport mirrors as large as 100 metres (328 feet) across, and have 40 times the observing power of the Hubble Space Telescope. A new study developed by a commission of European astronomers proposes that instruments this large could be built for approximately 1 billion Euros and take 10-15 years to construct.

Full Story - The largest ground-based optical telescopes in use today use mirrors that are 10 m (33 ft) across. But the prospects for future Extremely Large
Telescopes (ELTs) are looking up. According to recent studies by international teams of astronomers and leading astronomical organisations, the next generation of optical telescopes could be 50-100 metres (165 330 ft) in diameter - big enough to fill a sports stadium.

This quantum leap in size has important implications, since astronomers want to capture every photon of light that comes their way, and a 100 m mirror has a collecting area up to 100 times greater than existing instruments. Furthermore, a 100 m telescope would have extremely sharp vision, with the ability to see objects at up to 40 times the spatial resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope.
...


Full Story at Universerse Today

Greetings from Germany NRW
Ulli S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club m7 ©

> Really Big Telescopes are Coming

For those who'd like to know more about the European Southern Observatory 100 meter optical telescope concept, here is the link to it.

Messenger Out of the Bottle

Summary (Apr 19, 2005): MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) is a scientific investigation of the planet Mercury, and the first NASA mission designed to orbit the planet closest to the Sun. The MESSENGER spacecraft launched on Aug. 3, 2004, and after flybys of Earth, Venus and Mercury will start a yearlong study of its target planet in March 2011. The mission operations and spacecraft teams continue to check out MESSENGER's science payload - and prepare for additional instrument operations in the weeks ahead.

...


Message Out of the Bottle


more Info for MESSENGER MErcury Surface Space ENvironment

http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/

Stat Corner: MESSENGER is about 85.9 million miles (138.2 million kilometers) from the Sun and 23.1 million miles (37.3 million kilometers) from Earth. At that distance, a signal from Earth reaches the spacecraft in 2 minutes, 4 seconds. The spacecraft is moving around the Sun at 71,869 miles (115,662 kilometers) per hour. MESSENGER's onboard computers have executed 37,887 commands from mission operators since launch on Aug 3, 2004.

http://btc.montana.edu/messenger/main/epo.htm

Greetings from Germany NRW
Ulli S@h Berkeley's Staff Friends Club m7 ©

ESA issues first Jules Verne payload list

19 May 2005

In 2006, with the launch of Jules Verne, the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) will become the new European powerful automatic re-supply spaceship able to bring an indispensable payload to the International Space Station and its permanent crew. This first ATV will carry a mix of supplies depending on the Station’s needs and its own payload capacity.
..................

Hi Thierry

and

Hi Sir Ulli

thank you very much for this science reports.

these science reports are very interesting

byron

Hello and thanks Byron.

Voyager Enters Solar System's Final Frontier

05.24.05

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered the solar system's final frontier, a vast, turbulent expanse where the Sun's influence ends and the solar wind crashes into the thin gas between stars.

"Voyager has entered the final lap on its race to the edge of interstellar space, as it begins exploring the solar system's final frontier," said Dr. Edward Stone, Voyager project scientist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which built and operates Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2.
..................

Voyager Termination Shock can bee seen and heared here.

Other sounds from space are available here.

Solar Fireworks Signal New Space Weather Mystery

Washington DC (SPX) May 25, 2005

The most intense burst of solar radiation in five decades accompanied a large solar flare on January 20. It shook space weather theory and highlighted the need for new forecasting techniques, according to several presentations at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting this week in New Orleans.
...............

Topic - Astrobiology in the Arctic



A Bipolar Year: What We Can Learn About Looking for Life on Other Planets By Working in Cold Deserts

Presented by Dr. Pamela Conrad
JPL Research Scientist

Click here on Thursday June 16 at 7 p.m. PST for the webcast.

June 1, 2005

NASA Selects New Frontiers Mission Concept Study

NASA today announced that a mission to fly to Jupiter will proceed to a preliminary design phase. The mission is called Juno, and it is the second in NASA's New Frontiers Program.

The mission will conduct an in-depth study of the giant planet. The mission proposes to place a spacecraft in a polar orbit around Jupiter to investigate the existence of an ice-rock core; determine the amount of global water and ammonia present in the atmosphere; study convection and deep wind profiles in the atmosphere; investigate the origin of the jovian magnetic field; and explore the polar magnetosphere.

"We are excited at the prospect of the new scientific understanding and discoveries by Juno in our continued exploration of the outer reaches of our solar system during the next decade," said Dr. Ghassem Asrar, deputy associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

At the end of the preliminary design study, the mission must pass a confirmation review that will address significant schedule, technical and cost risks before being confirmed for the development phase.

Dr. Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo., is the principal investigator. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., will provide mission project management. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, will build the spacecraft.

NASA selected two proposed mission concepts for study in July 2004 from seven submitted in February 2004 in response to an agency Announcement of Opportunity. "This was a very tough decision given the exciting and innovative nature of the two missions," Asrar added.

The selected New Frontiers science mission must be ready for launch no later than June 30, 2010, within a mission cost cap of $700 million.

The New Frontiers Program is designed to provide opportunities to conduct several of the medium-class missions identified as top priority objectives in the Decadal Solar System Exploration Survey, conducted by the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council.

The first NASA New Frontiers mission will fly by the Pluto-Charon system in 2014 and then target another Kuiper asteroid belt object.

JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

---

me@rescam.org

Icy Jupiter Moon Throws a Curve Ball at Formation Theories

Scientists studying data from NASA's Galileo spacecraft have found that Jupiter's moon Amalthea is a pile of icy rubble less dense than water. Scientists expected moons closer to the planet to be rocky and not icy. The finding shakes up long-held theories of how moons form around giant planets.

"I was expecting a body made up mostly of rock. An icy component in a body orbiting so close to Jupiter was a surprise," said Dr. John D. Anderson, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Anderson is lead author of a paper on the findings that appears in the current issue of the journal Science.

"This gives us important information on how Jupiter formed, and by implication, how the solar system formed," Anderson said.

Current models imply that temperatures were high at Amalthea's current position when Jupiter's moons formed, but this is inconsistent with Amalthea being icy. The findings suggest that Amalthea formed in a colder environment. One possibility is that it formed later than the major moons. Another is that the moon formed farther from Jupiter, either beyond the orbit of Jupiter's moon Europa or in the solar nebula at or beyond Jupiter's position. It would have then been transported or captured in its current orbit around Jupiter. Either of these explanations challenges models of moon formation around giant planets.

"Amalthea is throwing us a curve ball," said Dr. Torrence Johnson, co-author and project scientist for the Galileo mission at JPL. "Its density is well below that of water ice, and even with substantial porosity, Amalthea probably contains a lot of water ice, as well as rock." Analysis of density, volume, shape and internal gravitational stresses lead the scientists to conclude that Amalthea is not only porous with internal empty spaces but also contains substantial water ice.

One model for the formation of Jupiter's moons suggests that moons closer to the planet would be made of denser material than those farther out. That is based on a theory that early Jupiter, like a weaker version of the early Sun, would have emitted enough heat to prevent volatile, low-density material from condensing and being incorporated into the closer moons. Jupiter's four largest moons fit this model, with the innermost of them, Io, also the densest, made mainly of rock and iron.

Amalthea is a small red-tinted moon that measures about 168 miles in length and half that in width. It orbits about 181,000 kilometers (112,468 miles) from Jupiter, considerably closer than the Moon orbits Earth. Galileo passed within about 99 miles of Amalthea on Nov. 5, 2002. Galileo's flyby of Amalthea brought the spacecraft closer to Jupiter than at any other time since it began orbiting the giant planet on Dec. 7, 1995. After more than 30 close encounters with Jupiter's four largest moons, the Amalthea flyby was the last moon flyby for Galileo.

The Galileo spacecraft's 14-year odyssey came to an end on Sept. 21, 2003. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, managed the Galileo mission for NASA.

Additional information about the mission is available online at: http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/

---

me@rescam.org

Scientists Discover Possible Titan Volcano

June 8, 2005

A recent flyby of Saturn's hazy moon Titan by the Cassini spacecraft has revealed evidence of a possible volcano, which could be a source of methane in Titan's atmosphere.

Images taken in infrared light show a circular feature roughly 30 kilometers (19 miles) in diameter that does not resemble any features seen on Saturn's other icy moons. Scientists interpret the feature as an "ice volcano," a dome formed by upwelling icy plumes that release methane into Titan's atmosphere. The findings appear in the June 9 issue of Nature.

"Before Cassini-Huygens, the most widely accepted explanation for the presence of methane in Titan's atmosphere was the presence of a methane-rich hydrocarbon ocean," said Dr. Christophe Sotin, distinguished visiting scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

"The suite of instruments onboard Cassini and the observations at the Huygens landing site reveal that a global ocean is not present," said Sotin, a team member of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument and professor at the Université de Nantes, France.

"Interpreting this feature as a cryovolcano provides an alternative explanation for the presence of methane in Titan's atmosphere. Such an interpretation is supported by models of Titan's evolution," Sotin said.

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is the only known moon to have a significant atmosphere, composed primarily of nitrogen, with 2 to 3 percent methane. One goal of the Cassini mission is to find an explanation for what is replenishing and maintaining this atmosphere. This dense atmosphere makes the surface very difficult to study with visible-light cameras, but infrared instruments like the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer can peer through the haze. Infrared images provide information about both the composition and the shape of the area studied.

The highest resolution image obtained by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument covers an area 150 kilometers square (90 miles) that includes a bright circular feature about 30 kilometers (19 miles) in diameter, with two elongated wings extending westward. This structure resembles volcanoes on Earth and Venus, with overlapping layers of material from a series of flows. "We all thought volcanoes had to exist on Titan, and now we've found the most convincing evidence to date. This is exactly what we've been looking for," said Dr. Bonnie Buratti, team member of the Cassini visual and infrared mapping spectrometer at JPL.

In the center of the area, scientists clearly see a dark feature that resembles a caldera, a bowl-shaped structure formed above chambers of molten material. The material erupting from the volcano might be a methane-water ice mixture combined with other ices and hydrocarbons. Energy from an internal heat source may cause these materials to upwell and vaporize as they reach the surface. Future Titan flybys will help determine whether tidal forces can generate enough heat to drive the volcano, or whether some other energy source must be present. Black channels seen by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe, which piggybacked on Cassini and landed on Titan's surface in January 2005, could have been formed by erosion from liquid methane rains following the eruptions.

Scientists have considered other explanations. They say the feature cannot be a cloud because it does not appear to move and it is the wrong composition. Another alternative is that an accumulation of solid particles was transported by gas or liquid, similar to sand dunes on Earth. But the shape and wind patterns don't match those normally seen in sand dunes.

The data for these findings are from Cassini's first targeted flyby of Titan on Oct. 26, 2004, at a distance of 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from the moon's surface.

The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer instrument can detect 352 wavelengths of light from 0.35 to 5.1 micrometers. It measures the intensities of individual wavelengths and uses the data to infer the composition and other properties of the object that emitted the light; each chemical has a unique spectral signature that can be identified.

Forty-five flybys of Titan are planned during Cassini's four-year prime mission. The next one is Aug. 22, 2005. Radar data of the same sites observed by the visual and infrared mapping spectrometer may provide additional information.

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer page is at http://wwwvims.lpl.arizona.edu .

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter was designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The visual and infrared mapping spectrometer team is based at the University of Arizona.