ScienceDaily: Space & Time NewsAstronomy News. Read the latest astronomy news and articles from around the world. Space and time theory and more. Full-text, images, updated daily.NASA Finds New Type Of Comet Dust Mineral- June 17, 2008 NASA researchers and scientists from the United States, Germany and Japan have found a new mineral in material that likely came from a comet. The mineral, a manganese silicide named Brownleeite, was discovered within an interplanetary dust particle, or IDP, that appears to have originated from comet 26PGrigg-Skjellerup. The comet originally was discovered in 1902 and reappears every 5 years.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080612194945.htm NASA Plans To Visit The Sun- June 17, 2008 For more than 400 years, astronomers have studied the sun from afar. Now NASA has decided to go there. The name of the mission is Solar Probe+. It's a heat-resistant spacecraft designed to plunge deep into the sun's atmosphere where it can sample solar wind and magnetism first hand.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080611142452.htm NASA Tests Lunar Robots And Spacesuits On Earthen Moonscape- June 16, 2008 Conditions on the moon will be harsher, but prototype NASA robotic vehicles braved sand storms and unprecedented temperature swings this month on sand dunes near Moses Lake, Wash., to prepare for future lunar expeditions. Teams from seven NASA centers and several universities conducted the tests from June 2-13.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080614180350.htm Trio Of Super-Earths: Harvest Of Low-mass Exoplanets Discovered With HARPS- June 16, 2008 European astronomers have announced a remarkable breakthrough in the field of extra-solar planets. Using the HARPS instrument at the ESO La Silla Observatory, they have found a triple system of super-Earths around the star HD 40307. Moreover, looking at their entire sample studied with HARPS, the astronomers count a total of 45 candidate planets with a mass below 30 Earth masses and an orbital period shorter than 50 days. This implies that one solar-like star out of three harbours such planets.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080616081723.htm Radiation Testing: Northwestern Transistors On Space Station- June 16, 2008 Transistors based on a new kind of material created by Northwestern University researchers have been lifted into outer space on the space shuttle Endeavour and attached to the outside of the International Space Station for radiation testing. The transistors, which used a new kind of gate dielectric material called a self-assembled nanodielectric, will remain there for a year as part of a NASA materials experiment to see how they and other materials hold up to the harsh space environment.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080610160049.htm Phoenix Mars Lander Inspects Delivered Soil Samples- June 14, 2008 New observations from NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander provide the most magnified view ever seen of Martian soil, showing particles clumping together even at the smallest visible scale. In the past two days, two instruments on the lander deck -- a microscope and a bake-and-sniff analyzer -- have begun inspecting soil samples delivered by the scoop on Phoenix's Robotic Arm.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080614010657.htm International Mission Studying Sun To Conclude- June 14, 2008 After over 17 years of operation, the joint ESANASA mission Ulysses will officially conclude on 1 July this year. The spacecraft, which studied the Sun and its effect on the surrounding space for almost four times its expected lifespan, will cease to function because of the decline in power produced by its on-board generators.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080612130146.htm Ultraviolet Gives View Inside Real Death Star- June 14, 2008 Scientists have, for the first time, observed a flash of ultraviolet light from within a dying star giving vital evidence of how stars turn into supernovae. combined data from ground-bound telescopes observing visible light from supernovae with data from a space telescope looking for an earlier peak in ultraviolet light from an associated dying star. They were able to spot telltale signs of the shockwave that forms within a star before it explodes into a supernova.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080613134315.htm Life's Raw Materials May Have Come From The Stars, Scientists Confirm- June 13, 2008 Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin. The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080613092514.htm Phoenix Mars Lander Delivers Soil Sample To Microscope- June 13, 2008 NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander sprinkled a spoonful of Martian soil Wednesday onto the sample wheel of the spacecraft's robotic microscope station, images received early June 12 confirmed.http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080612201429.htm |