Space News Archive - February 21, 2006
ESA's Mars Express spacecraft has seen more evidence that aurorae occur over the night side of Mars, especially over areas of the surface where variations in the magnetic properties of the crust have been detected.
These images, taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) on board ESA's Mars Express spacecraft, show the fast-moving shadow of the moon Phobos as it moved across the Martian surface.
When Voyager 1 finally crossed the "termination shock" at the edge of interstellar space in December 2004, space physicists anticipated the long-sought discovery of the source of anomalous cosmic rays. A mystery unfolded instead when Voyager data showed 20 years of predictions to be wrong.
For scientists eying distant planets and solar systems for signs of alien activity, Carol Cleland suggests the first order of business is to keep an open mind. It may be a mistake to try to define life based on our Earth experience.
In the search for life on other worlds, scientists can listen for radio transmissions from stellar neighborhoods where intelligent civilizations might lurk or they can try to actually spot planets like our own in habitable zones around nearby stars.
Astronomers of the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory (UK) have led an international team which used the Parkes radio telescope in Australia to find a new kind of cosmic object which sends out radio flashes.
A NASA-led team of astronomers have used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to detect a strong flow of heat radiation from a toasty planet orbiting a nearby star. The findings allowed the team to "take the temperature" of the planet.
Researchers using a "stardust factory" at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., have solved a mystery of how dying stars make silicate dust at high temperatures.
