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Дата: 18 мая 1998 (1998-05-18) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Dan Goldin, Hillary Rodham Clinton Join Trans-Atlantic Classroom Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... Roderic Olvera Young Headquarters, Washington, DC May 11, 1998 (Phone: 202/358-4726) NOTE TO EDITORS: N98-33 NASA ADMINISTRATOR GOLDIN IN WASHINGTON, DC, AND FIRST LADY IN PARIS JOIN TRANS-ATLANTIC CLASSROOM Using the Internet, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and students at the Ecole Nationale de Chimie, Physique et Biologie in Paris will talk to NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin and students at Kramer Middle School in Washington, DC. The American and French space agencies at 9:00 a.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 13, will connect students in Washington, DC, New York, and Paris. Students will share groundwater and vegetation data collected using the CERES satellite and lead each other on tours of their respective cities. Building on extensive cooperation in space research, NASA and the Centre National d'Etudies Spatiales (CNES) are forging an international educational program that capitalizes on the wonder and excitement of space. The First Lady and Goldin also seek to address recent studies that show U.S. students lagging behind in science and mathematics. Event: First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and NASA Administrator Join Students in Trans-Atlantic Internet Classroom Where: Kramer Middle School, 1700 Q St., SE, Washington, DC Principal, Nancy Berry 202/645-3520 When: Wednesday, May 13, 1998 9 am to 10 am EDT -end- Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 18 мая 1998 (1998-05-18) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: WDC-A R&S Launch Announcement 12939: NOAA-K Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... COSPAR/ISES WORLD WARNING AGENCY FOR SATELLITES WORLD DATA CENTER-A FOR R & S, NASA/GSFC CODE 633, GREENBELT, MARYLAND, 20771. USA SPACEWARN 12939 COSPAR/WWAS USSPACECOM NUMBER SPACECRAFT INTERNATIONAL ID (CATALOG NUMBER) LAUNCH DATE,UT NOAA-K 1998-030A 25338 13 MAY 1998 DR. JOSEPH H. KING, DIRECTOR, WDC-A-R&S. [PH: (301) 286 7355. E-MAIL: KING@NSSDCA.GSFC.NASA.GOV 14 MAY 1998, 14:00 UT] Further details will be in the next SPACEWARN Bulletin Dr. Edwin V. Bell, II _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ Mail Code 633 _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ NASA Goddard Space _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ Flight Center _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Greenbelt, MD 20771 _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ +1-301-286-1187 ed.bell@gsfc.nasa.gov SPACEWARN home page: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/spacewarn/ Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 18 мая 1998 (1998-05-18) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Hughes Satellite Orbits Moon, Heads Back To Earth Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... HUGHES GLOBAL SERVICES, INC. Communications and Customer Relations P.O. Box 92919 (S10/S323) Los Angeles, CA 90009 Media Relations (310) 364-6363 Investor Relations (310) 662-9688 www.hughesglobal.com HUGHES SATELLITE ORBITS MOON, HEADS BACK TO EARTH LOS ANGELES, May 13, 1998 -- The HGS-1 spacecraft became the first commercial communications satellite to orbit the moon, passing behind it at noon PDT today to grab a boost from lunar gravity and hurtle back toward Earth. Engineers at the Hughes Mission Control Center in El Segundo, Calif., will begin braking maneuvers Saturday to guide the arriving spacecraft into orbit around the equator. HGS-1 is a high-power satellite built by Hughes Space and Communications Company of Los Angeles, and owned by its subsidiary, Hughes Global Services, Inc. (HGS). It was designed to provide television and other telecommunications services for Asia and neighboring regions. During launch last Christmas Day, however, the rocket that was carrying it malfunctioned, leaving the satellite in an unusable, highly inclined, elliptical orbit. The original owner of the spacecraft filed an insurance claim, and the insurers declared the mission a total loss for its original purposes. Hughes scientists and engineers weren't ready to give up on the fully functional satellite, however. They devised a salvage mission using the moon's gravity to reposition the satellite into a usable circular orbit 22,300 miles above the equator, called geosynchronous orbit. It is the first known lunar mission involving a communications satellite and the first lunar mission financed by a non-governmental entity. If Hughes can put the HS 601HP model satellite into a useful revenue-generating orbit, it has agreed to share profits with the insurers. HGS-1 began its lunar encounter at 11:52 a.m. PDT today. Occultation -- the period during which it was behind the moon and out of radio contact with ground controllers -- lasted until 12:20 p.m. The satellite came within 3,883 miles of the moon's surface -- called perilune -- at 12:55 p.m. It's now on a 3-day return trip to Earth. Over the next three days, Hughes controllers will prepare the satellite for a retro burn that will slow HGS-1 as it approaches geosynchronous orbit. The spacecraft is expected to execute the maneuvers around 8 p.m. PDT Saturday. Controllers are using satellite ground stations, optical telescopes and radar facilities around the world to track the spacecraft. Hughes began the mission April 10, firing the satellite's onboard rocket motor several times to raise its altitude. The 12th firing was May 7, giving HGS-1 its final kick toward the moon. Hughes Space and Communications, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corporation, has been building communications and scientific spacecraft and instruments for more than 35 years. It is the world leader in manufacturing commercial geostationary communications satellites. Hughes Global Services packages commercial satellite services for government and military customers. HGS also works with other Hughes Electronics companies to provide end-to-end solutions for underserved commercial markets. PanAmSat Corporation, of which Hughes Electronics is the majority owner, has been providing critical command and tracking support for the mission through its teleport in Fillmore, Calif. The earnings of Hughes Electronics are used to calculate the earnings per share attributable to GMH (NYSE symbol) common stock. ### Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 18 мая 1998 (1998-05-18) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: SJI's Sky And Space Update - May 1, 1998 Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... SAN JUAN INSTITUTE'S SKY AND SPACE UPDATE Summary information about the night sky and recent findings and events in solar system exploration and science. Updated every 2 weeks. LAST UPDATED: FRI. MAY 1, 1998 Prepared by: Dr. Bruce Betts and Andre Bormanis OBJECTS TO LOOK FOR IN THE NIGHT SKY (MID-NORTHERN LATITUDES) MERCURY is visible just before dawn low in the east-northeast, looking like a dim star. VENUS is visible in the east in the pre-dawn sky, looking like an extremely bright star. MARS, not visible in the night sky, passes through conjunction with the Sun on May 12. JUPITER lies to the upper right of Venus before dawn, looking like a bright star. SATURN is just barely visible above the eastern horizon before dawn, to the lower left of Venus, looking like a pale yellow star. It lies within one degree of Mercury on the mornings of May 12 and May 13. THE MOON First Quarter Moon occurs May 3 at 2:04 a.m. PDT (UT - 7 hours). Full Moon occurs May 11 at 6:29 a.m. PDT. This month's full Moon is called the Milk or Planting Moon and the Moon of the Shedding Ponies. THE IRIDIUM FLASH A new family of communication satellites built by Motorola is producing an interesting night-sky phenomenon. The Iridium satellite constellation will eventually consist of 66 satellites orbiting the Earth in six evenly-spaced orbital planes (about 50 of the satellites have been launched so far). The satellites are designed to provide world-wide digital communication services. As the satellites circle the Earth, their antenna arrays occasionally turn at an angle that flashes a beam of sunlight toward the ground. These so-called "Iridium flashes" are sometimes, for a few seconds, significantly brighter than the planet Venus! Several times a week, from any given location, Iridium flashes of varying brightness should be visible just after dusk or just before dawn. The timing and brightness of the flashes strongly depends on your geographic location. You can find out when flashes will be visible in your area on the World Wide Web. Point your web browser to http://www.gsoc.dlr.de/satvis/. The site will prompt you for the name of your city, or your latitude and longitude. EUROPA DAY A "Day on Europa" will take place on May 20 and 21, sponsored by the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, CA, including the Galileo mission currently in orbit around Jupiter. Europa Day will be a series of free public and educational activities focusing on current and future exploration of Europa, and its potential for an ocean of water under its icy crust, and that ocean's potential for life. A panel discussion held at Caltech on May 21 will be available on the Internet via video on the Internet and via satellite broadcast. There are also numerous events scheduled across the U.S. For additional details, see: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/europaday/ PLANETARY SPACECRAFT UPDATE CASSINI: The Cassini spacecraft passed within 284 kilometers of the planet Venus on Sunday, Apr. 26. Cassini used this close encounter with the second planet from the Sun to increase its speed in a maneuver called a 'gravity assist.' As Cassini zoomed past Venus, the planet's gravitational pull acted like a slingshot, giving the spacecraft additional momentum. The encounter increased the speed of Cassini by some 26,000 kilometers per hour. Cassini pointed several of its science instruments toward Venus during its Sunday fly-by. All instruments functioned as expected. A second Venus fly-by is scheduled for Jun. 24 of next year, to be followed by an Earth gravity assist in Aug. 1999, and a Jupiter assist in the year 2000. By stealing a little of each planet's orbital momentum, Cassini will be able to cover the 3.5 billion kilometer journey to Saturn in just 7 years. Cassini is currently traveling at 140,000 kilometers per hour. SOHO: Data from the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft suggest that the Sun sometimes ejects blobs of hot solar plasma into space in 'spasms' that resemble human coughing, and also experiences 'solar tornadoes.' SOHO's Large Angle Spectrometric Coronograph monitors the Sun's tenuous outer atmosphere, called the corona. Using this instrument, scientists have observed that large-scale eruptions of solar gas, called coronal mass ejections, can trigger a chain reaction that leads to a series of plasma ejections. This process is similar to the muscular spasms in the human throat that trigger fits of coughing. Electrical engineers are particularly interested in coronal mass ejections because these clouds of electrically charged particles travel through space and occasionally interact with the Earth's magnetic field. These interactions frequently disrupt electrical distribution grids on the ground, triggering power failures. Coronal mass ejections can also damage Earth orbiting satellites. SOHO also observed eruptions of solar plasma that formed twisting, funnel-shaped vortices above the solar photosphere. These tornado-like structures featured shear velocities clocked at 536,000 kilometers per hour -- a thousand times the velocity of winds in the most ferocious tornadoes on Earth. SOHO, launched in 1995, is a joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). For more information on current U.S. and other planetary science missions, see the NASA website http://www.jpl.nasa.gov. For more information on ESA missions, see the ESA website http://www.esrin.esa.it/. THESE WEEKS IN SPACE HISTORY MAY 1, 1949: Neptune's moon Nereid was discovered by American astronomer Gerard Kuiper. MAY 5, 1961: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space during a fifteen minute sub-orbital flight. RANDOM SPACE FACT William Herschel, who discovered Uranus in 1781, tried unsuccessfully to name his discovery "Georgian Sidus" after King George III; instead, the planet was named by Johann Bode in 1781 for the father of Saturn. ***************************************************************************** The San Juan Institute (SJI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation headquartered in San Juan Capistrano, CA with divisions there and in Tucson, AZ. SJI carries out research and education in planetary and Earth sciences and astronomy, with funding provided by government grants and private donations, which are always needed. Partial funding for the SSU has been provided by NASA's Office of Space Science. San Juan Capistrano Research Institute Ph: 714-240-2010, Fax: 714-240-0482 31882 Camino Capistrano, Suite 107 Email: educate@sji.org San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675 Web site: http://www.sji.org Hа сегодня все, пока! =SANA=

Дата: 18 мая 1998 (1998-05-18) От: Alexander Bondugin Тема: Hubble Provides Multiple Views Of How To Feed A Black Hole Привет всем! Вот, свалилось из Internet... May 14, 1998 CONTACT: Douglas Isbell Headquarters, Washington, DC (Phone: 202/358-1753) Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD (Phone: 410/338-4514) PRESS RELEASE: STScI-PR98-14 HUBBLE PROVIDES MULTIPLE VIEWS OF HOW TO FEED A BLACK HOLE Astronomers have obtained an unprecedented look at the nearest example of galactic cannibalism -- a massive black hole hidden at the center of a nearby giant galaxy that is feeding on a smaller galaxy in a spectacular collision. Such fireworks were common in the early universe, as galaxies formed and evolved, but are rare today. Although the cause-and-effect relationships are not yet clear, the views provided by complementary images from two instruments aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are giving astronomers new insights into the powerful forces being exerted in this complex maelstrom. Researchers believe these forces may even have shifted the axis of the massive black hole from its expected orientation. The Hubble wide-field camera visible image of the merged Centaurus A galaxy, also called NGC 5128, shows in sharp clarity a dramatic dark lane of dust girdling the galaxy. Blue clusters of newborn stars are clearly resolved, and silhouettes of dust filaments are interspersed with blazing orange-glowing gas. Located only 10 million light-years away, this peculiar-looking galaxy contains the closest active galactic nucleus to Earth and has long been considered an example of an elliptical galaxy disrupted by a recent collision with a smaller companion spiral galaxy. Using the infrared vision of Hubble, astronomers have penetrated this wall of dust for the first time to see a twisted disk of hot gas swept up in the black hole's gravitational whirlpool. The suspected black hole is so dense it contains the mass of perhaps a billion stars, compacted into a small region of space not much larger than our Solar System. Resolving features as small as seven light-years across, Hubble has shown astronomers that the hot gas disk is tilted in a different direction from the black hole's axis -- like a wobbly wheel around an axle. The black hole's axis is identified by the orientation of a high-speed jet of material, glowing in X-rays and radio frequencies, blasted from the black hole at 1/100th the speed of light. This gas disk presumably fueling the black hole may have formed so recently it is not yet aligned to the black hole's spin axis, or it may simply be influenced more by the galaxy's gravitational tug than by the black hole's. "This black hole is doing its own thing. Aside from receiving fresh fuel from a devoured galaxy, it may be oblivious to the rest of the galaxy and the collision," said Ethan Schreier of the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD. Schreier and an international team of co-investigators used Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer to probe deeper into the galaxy's mysterious heart than anyone has before. The hot gas disk viewed by Hubble investigators is perpendicular to the galaxy's outer dust belt, while the black hole's own internal accretion disk of superhot gas falling into it is tilted approximately diagonally to these axes. "We have found a complicated situation of a disk within a disk within a disk, all pointing in different directions," Schreier said. It is not clear if the black hole was always present in the host galaxy or belonged to the spiral galaxy that fell into the core, or if it is the product of the merger of a pair of smaller black holes that lived in the two once-separate galaxies. Having an active galaxy just 10 million light-years away from Earth rather than hundreds of millions or billions of light-years distant offers astronomers a unique laboratory for understanding the elusive details of the behavior of supermassive black holes as fueled by galaxy collisions. "Though Hubble has seen hot gas disks around black holes in other galaxies, the infrared camera has for the first time allowed us to peer at this relatively nearby, very active, but obscured black hole region," Schreier added. The team of astronomers is awaiting further Hubble data to continue its study of the disk, as well as ground-based spectroscopic observations to measure the velocity of entrapped material around the black hole. This will allow the astronomers to better calculate the black hole's mass. The current results are scheduled to appear in the June 1, 1998 issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters. Images and further information related to these results are available on the Internet at the following URLs: http://oposite.stsci.edu/1998/14 http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/latest.html or http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pictures.html GIF and JPEG images are available via anonymous ftp to oposite.stsci.edu in /pubinfo/jpeg/9814a.jpg, /pubinfo/jpeg/9814.jpg, /pubinfo/gif/9814a.gif and /pubinfo/gif/9814b.gif. The Space Telescope Science Institute is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) for NASA, under contract with the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). ************************************* PHOTO CAPTIONS: EMBARGOED UNTIL: 1:00 P.M. (EDT) MAY 14, 1998 PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC98-14a TURBULENT CAULDRON OF STARBIRTH IN NEARBY ACTIVE GALAXY NASA's Hubble Space Telescope offers a stunning unprecedented close-up view of a turbulent firestorm of starbirth along a nearly edge-on dust disk girdling Centaurus A, the nearest active galaxy to Earth. A ground-based telescopic view (upper left insert) shows that the dust lane girdles the entire elliptical galaxy. This lane has long been considered the dust remnant of a smaller spiral galaxy that merged with the large elliptical galaxy. The spiral galaxy deposited its gas and dust into the elliptical galaxy, and the shock of the collision compressed interstellar gas, precipitating a flurry of star formation. Resembling looming storm clouds, dark filaments of dust mixed with cold hydrogen gas are silhouetted against the incandescent yellow-orange glow from hot gas and stars behind it. Brilliant clusters of young blue stars lie along the edge of the dark dust rift. Outside the rift the sky is filled with the soft hazy glow of the galaxy's much older resident population of red giant and red dwarf stars. The dusty disk is tilted nearly edge-on, its inclination estimated to be only 10 or 20 degrees from our line-of-sight. The dust lane has not yet had enough time since the recent merger to settle down into a flat disk. At this oblique angle, bends and warps in the dust lane cause us to see a rippled "washboard" structure. The picture is a mosaic of two Hubble Space Telescope images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2, on Aug. 1, 1997 and Jan. 10, 1998. The approximately natural color is assembled from images taken in blue, green and red light. Details as small as seven light-years across can be resolved. The blue color is due to the light from extremely hot, newborn stars. The reddish-yellow color is due in part to hot gas, in part to older stars in the elliptical galaxy and in part to scattering of blue light by dust -- the same effect that produces brilliant orange sunsets on Earth. Centaurus A (NGC 5128) Fast Facts: Right Ascension: 13: 25.5 (hours : minutes) Declination: -43 : 01 (degrees : minutes) Apparent Magnitude: 7.0 Apparent Diameter: 18.2 (arc minutes) Distance: 10 million light-years Constellation: Centaurus (southern sky) Hubble image credit: E.J. Schreier, (STScI) and NASA Team members are: E.J. Schreier, A. Marconi, D. Axon, N. Caon, and D. Macchetto (STScI) Groundbased image credit: NOAO ***************************************************** EMBARGOED UNTIL: 1:00 P.M. (EDT) May 14, 1998 PHOTO NO.: STScI-PRC98-14b CENTAURUS A: THE INSIDE STORY Astronomers have used NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to probe the core of the nearest active galaxy to Earth, Centaurus A. [UPPER LEFT] - A close-up high resolution Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 image of the dramatic dust disk which is thought to be the remnant of a smaller spiral galaxy that merged with the large elliptical galaxy. The shock of the collision compressed interstellar gas, precipitating a flurry of star formation and giving the material a fleecy pattern. Dark filaments of dust mixed with cold hydrogen gas are silhouetted against the incandescent yellow-orange glow from stars behind it. [LOWER RIGHT] - Hubble's Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer was used to peer past the dust to discover a tilted disk of hot gas at the galaxy's center (white bar running diagonally across image center). This 130 light-year diameter disk encircles a suspected black hole which may be one billion times the mass of our Sun. The disk feeds material to presumably an inner, unresolved accretion disk that is made up of gas entrapped by the black hole. The red blobs near the disk are glowing gas clouds which have been heated up and ionized by the powerful radiation from the active nucleus. The false-color NICMOS image was taken on Aug. 11, 1997 at a wavelength of 1.87 microns ("Paschen alpha"), characteristic of ionized Hydrogen. Centaurus A (NGC 5128) Fast Facts Right Ascension: 13 : 25.5 (hours : minutes) Declination: -43 : 01 (degrees : minutes) Apparent Magnitude: 7.0 Apparent Diameter: 18.2 (arc minutes) Distance: 10 million light-years Constellation: Centaurus (southern sky) Credit: E.J. Schreier, (STScI) and NASA Team members are: Ethan J. Schreier, Alessandro Marconi, David J. Axon, Nicola Caon, Duccio Macchetto ( STScI), Alessandro Capetti - (Osservatorio Astronomico di Torino, Italy), James H. Hough, Stuart Young ( University of Hertfordshire, UK), and Chris Packham (Isaac Newton Group, Islas Canarias, SPAIN) *********************************************************** ASTROFILE: KEY EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF CENTAURUS A 1847: Sir John Herschel was the first to report observations of what we now know as NGC 5128, or its radio name Centaurus A. In his "Outlines of Astronomy," published in 1849, Herschel described it as "two semi-ovals of elliptically formed nebula appearing to be cut asunder and separated by a broad obscure band parallel to the larger axis of the nebula, in the midst of which a faint streak of light parallel to the sides of the cut appears." 1848-1949: Despite Herschel's observation, astronomers paid little attention to Centaurus A for about 100 years because they considered it another one of those nebulous, fuzzy objects originally thought to be in our own galaxy. Even Edwin Hubble called it a nebulous object. Later astronomers with more powerful telescopes identified many of these objects as galaxies. Centaurus A also was largely ignored because of the lack of large optical telescopes in the southern hemisphere, where this galaxy can be seen. 1949: Astronomers had just developed another technique to study celestial objects besides optical light: special instruments to collect radio waves. Using an 80-foot radio antenna at Dover