Astronomy News
Astronomy magazine is a great source of astronomy news. One of the stories it covered was NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft. Just as weathermen examine fronts and the interaction of hot air with cold air and dry air with wet air, IBEX is interested in such fronts and their interaction in outer space. Specifically it’s the interaction of the solar winds with the relatively cold space beyond the solar system. IBEX is also set to map the boundaries of our solar system. More astronomy news covered by Astronomy magazine is the discovery of a new aurora on Saturn that’s unlike any other known aurora in the solar system. An aurora is formed when charged particles stream along planetary magnetic field. Earth’s aurorae come from charged particles from the solar wind. Jupiter’s aurorae come from interactions within Jupiter’s own magnetic field. But Saturn’s new aurora, seen in the infrared spectrum, is something completely new which could teach scientists a lot about the solar wind and magnetic fields. Universe today is another source of astronomy news. On November 13, 2008 it carried the story of contact reestablished with the Mars rover. The rover had lost contact after running through a massive dust storm. But the Rover named Spirit recovered from a near catastrophic low power period. Its solar panels couldn’t get sun in the dust storm, and scientists feared it would go into a low power coma-like mode from which it would not wake. But it did, and now it’s back to work on the distant red planet. Another piece of astronomy news on Universe today is the stunning expectation that the new Allen Telescope Array, part of the SETI project, will find intelligent life in about two dozen years. The array currently is made up of 42 antennas, but will expand over time to include 350 small radio antennas that search the sky for signals that mean intelligence. When it finally includes 350 antennas, by 2025, scientists involved with the project say it will reach far enough into space to finally pull in signals from intelligent extraterrestrials. If that intelligent life is contacted, that will be some big astronomy news. If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
