Satellite News

Northrop Grumman Corporation reported second quarter 2006 financial results.

EADS reported financial results for the first half of 2006.

Boeing announced its Wideband Gapfiller Satellite (WGS) programme has successfully completed two more key space-to-ground compatibility tests with partners Universal Space Network (USN) and ITT Industries.

The crash of the Dnepr launch vehicle shortly after lift-off from Baikonur yesterday was likely caused by a failure in the first stage, according to Igor Panarin, spokesman for the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos).

Hubble’s view of Mars in 2003. Image credit: HubbleClick to enlarge
Have you gotten a copy of the email yet? If you haven’t, you probably will. Forwarded from a friend, forwarded again and again until the original source is lost in the murky cloud of the Internet, it encourages you to get set for the experience of a lifetime. When MARS WILL LOOK AS LARGE AS THE FULL MOON!!!!! Is this going to happen? No. But there’s a strange gem of truth at the heart of this misunderstanding/hoax. I’ll give you the history and then everything you need to explain what’s going on to your excited but misinformed email forwarding friends.

Spokes in Saturn’s rings. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSIClick to enlarge
Nope, that’s not an error in the photograph. The ghostly white stripe in Saturn’s rings was captured by Cassini on July 23, 2006. This is the first time that Cassini has seen spokes in Saturn’s rings in nearly a year, and the first time from the sunlit side of the rings. Some scientists think the spokes might be caused by meteoroid impacts onto the rings. Others suggest they’re created by an instability in Saturn’s magnetic field.

Filamentary structure in 3D. Image credit: SubaruClick to enlarge
Astronomers have used the Subaru and Keck telescopes to discover gigantic filaments of galaxies stretching across 200 million light-years in space. These filaments, formed just 2 billion years after the Big Bang, are the largest structures ever discovered in the Universe. The filaments contain at least 30 huge concentrations of gas, each of which contains 10x the mass of the Milky Way.

Titan. Image credit: NASA/JPL/SSIClick to enlarge
New research from NASA, published in the journal Nature suggests that it’s always raining on Titan. Not thunderstorms, but a low level liquid methane drizzle that never stops. When Huygens landed onto the surface of Titan, it came down with a splat, presumably into mud. Scientists estimate that the amount of rain amounts to about 5 cm (2 inches) a year of accumulation – the same amount that falls in Death Valley on Earth. But this rain falls steadily, keeping the ground relatively damp.