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Updated: 1 year 44 weeks ago
Ulysses Starts New Journey Around The Sun's Poles
Sixteen years after its launch on Oct. 6, 1990, the Ulysses spacecraft has begun its third "solar polar orbit" -- a journey around the poles of the sun. The mission, a joint NASA-European Space Agency venture, studies how the sun's gaseous outer atmosphere spews into space, creating huge space storms. This violent "space weather," in turn, can affect Earth's electricity, satellite and cell phone communications.
World's Largest Superconducting Magnet Switches On, To Help Answer Universe's 'Big Questions'
The largest superconducting magnet ever built has successfully been powered up to its operating conditions at the first attempt. Called the "Barrel Toroid" because of its shape, this magnet is a vital part of ATLAS, one of the major particle detectors being prepared to take data at CERN's Large Hadron Collider, the new particle accelerator scheduled to turn on in November 2007. ATLAS will help scientists probe the big questions of the universe.
Ulysses Embarks On Third Set Of Polar Passes
The joint ESA-NASA Ulysses mission has reached another important milestone on its epic out-of-ecliptic journey: the start of the third passage over the Sun's south pole. Launched in 1990, the European-built spacecraft is engaged in the exploration of the heliosphere, the bubble in space blown out by the solar wind. Given the capricious nature of the Sun, this third visit will undoubtedly reveal new and unexpected features of our star's environment.
Hubble Finds Evidence For Dark Energy In The Young Universe
Scientists using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that dark energy is not a new constituent of space, but rather has been present for most of the universe's history. Dark energy is a mysterious repulsive force that causes the universe to expand at an increasing rate.
Chandra Discovers Relativistic Pinball Machine
New clues about the origins of cosmic rays, mysterious high-energy particles that bombard the Earth, have been revealed using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. An extraordinarily detailed image of the remains of an exploded star provides crucial insight into the generation of cosmic rays.
Milky Way Shaped Life On Earth
Frenzied star-making in the Milky Way Galaxy starting about 2,400 million years ago had extraordinary effects on life on Earth. Harvests of bacteria in the sea soared and crashed in a succession of booms and busts, with an instability not seen before or since.
Japanese Space Probe's View Of Large Magellanic Cloud: Star Formation At Work
The infrared surveyor AKARI, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission with ESA participation, is nearing the completion of its first scan of the entire sky. During this phase of the mission, it has supplied the largest wavelength coverage of the Large Magellanic Cloud to date, and provided fascinating new images of this galaxy.
Happy Birthday, Venus Express!
One year after its launch on November 9, 2005, and a few months into its science phase, ESA's Venus Express keeps working well and continues to gather lots of data about the hot and noxious atmosphere of the planet. Newly released images show additional details of the thick cloud deck that surrounds Venus.
About this image
Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA. Image has been modified.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System. An uninterrupted view of the Sun is achieved by operating SOHO from a permanent vantage point 1.5 million kilometers sunward of the Earth. SOHO was designed to observe the Sun continuously for at least two years.
- New quasar is the oldest yet
- Closing in on the gamma-ray sky
- Milky Way Black Hole May Be A Colossal 'Particle Accelerator'
- Cosmic Lighthouses: Astrophysicists Explain Differences In Brightness Of Supernova Explosions
- Universe Offers 'Eternal Feast,' Cosmologist Says
- Origin Of Darkest Galaxies In The Universe Elucidated
- Scientists Find High Energy Systems Hidden In 'Gas Cocoon'
- Astronomer Finds Closest Gravitational Lensing Galaxy
- First negatively charged molecule found in space
- Binary star pulsates with high-energy gamma rays
- Active galactic nuclei
- Gamma ray 'clock' found creating antimatter
- Astronomers Find First Ever Gamma Ray Clock
