Global News Post: Space

Scientists Discover Planet Covered in Diamonds

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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Scientists
have found a planet outside of our solar system which could be a true diamond
in the rough.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">This
gem of a planet is twice Earth’s size, according to the US-Franco team that
found it, and its surface appears to be covered in graphite and diamond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Researchers
estimate that at least one-third of the new planet’s mass could be diamond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
gemstone planet, called ’55 Cancri e’, has a radius twice that of Earth’s and a
mass that’s eight times greater, making it a “super-Earth.”  The planet is one of five found orbiting ’55
Cancri’, a sun-like star about 40 light years from Earth.  Located in the constellation of Cancer, scientists
say the star can be seen with the naked eye.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Astronomers
first spotted the planet last year as it was transiting its star, which allowed
them to measure its radius for the first time. 
Using that information, along with their most recent estimate of its
mass, researchers used computer modeling to speculate on the chemical
composition of the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Previous
research revealed that the host star, 55 Cancri, has more carbon than it does
oxygen, leading the US-French team to confirm that significant amounts of
carbon and silicon carbide, with only a small amount of water ice, were
available during the planet’s formation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Astronomers
initially assumed the diamond planet’s chemical composition was similar to
Earth’s and that 55 Cancri e contained a substantial quantity of super-heated
water.  However, according to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Yale</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>
researcher Nikku Madhusudhan, the new research suggests the planet has no water
at all and is primarily made up of carbon – such as graphite and diamond – as
well as iron, silicon carbide, and, possibly, some silicates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The
identification of a carbon-rich super-Earth means scientists can no longer
assume that all distant rocky planets have chemical elements, interiors, atmospheres
or biologies similar to Earth, according to Madhusudhan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Which
means there could be other gemstone planets out there just waiting to be
discovered. ---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Scientists Discover Planet Covered in Diamonds

Scientists have found a planet outside of our solar system which could be a true diamond in the rough. This gem of a planet is tw...

NASA Discovers Millions of Black Holes in Space

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<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">By Cindy Saine<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer telescope, also known as WISE, has led to a bonanza discovery of supermassive black holes and rare galaxies called hot DOGS, or dust-obscured galaxies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">WISE scanned the sky twice in infrared light, completing its survey early last year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>NASA released all of the data from the mission, allowing scientists around the world to continue to make new discoveries of their own.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Using WISE, astronomers have identified some 2.5 million actively feeding supermassive black holes, some of them more than 10 billion light years away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>About two-thirds of these black holes previously were unknown.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>A black hole is an object whose gravitational pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it once inside a particular region.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NASA astronomer Daniel Stern says the latest findings are helping astronomers better understand how galaxies, and the black holes at their centers, grow and evolve together.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"One of the biggest results in the past decade has been a realization that every galaxy appears to have a large black hole at its center.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Our own Milky Way [galaxy] has a black hole weighing about 4 million times the mass of the sun [our sun]," said Stern.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">WISE researchers also report finding the rarest and brightest galaxies known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>WISE project scientist Peter Eisenhardt says these are called "hot DOGS" because they are very hot, dust-obscured galaxies.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"And now, with the WISE survey in hand, we are finding that is actually the most obscured objects in the WISE sky that are among the brightest in the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>WISE has found about 1,000 of these brilliant "hot DOGS," said Eisenhardt.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Eisenhardt says these galaxies are the brightest because they are the most powerful, emitting the most energy across the electromagnetic spectrum, even though they might not be easily visible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Experts say these galaxies are more than twice as hot as other infrared-bright galaxies and that they might be seeing a new, rare phase in the evolution of galaxies - another clue in understanding the mysteries of the universe.---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

NASA Discovers Millions of Black Holes in Space

By Cindy Saine NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer telescope, also known as WISE, has led to a bonanza discovery of supermassi...

Schoolboys from India Discover Asteroids

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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NEW DELHI, India (NNN-Bernama) -- In what is being considered a rare feat by experts, four schoolboys from Delhi have discovered two asteroids. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Shubham Sharma and Mayank Sharma of DAV Centenary School, Paschim Vihar and young Astronomicans (amateur astronomer's wing of SPACE) Sahil Wadhwa and Akshay Gupta, who were part of two separate teams, have made two provisional discoveries of asteroids doing the country proud, SPACE Director C B Devgun told Press Trust of India (PTI). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"This marks a rare achievement for SPACE and its associated educational institutes, as asteroids are hard to search for and needs dedication and continuous efforts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Provisional discoveries are the asteroids which have been confirmed by further observations," he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The teams used exclusive data to look at specific parts of the sky and by using a complex procedure called 'Astrometrica' they tracked objects by looking at the images of the sky provided by telescopes-based in the United States to see which of the objects moving over time could be a possible asteroid, he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The discoveries were made as part of the programme All Indian Asteroid Search Campaign (AIASC) conducted jointly between April and August this year by Science Popularisation Association of Communicators (SPACE) and International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), Devgun said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">IASC Director Patrick Miller has congratulated the two school teams for achieving the rare feat. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sahil Wadhwa had made provisional discoveries in 2010 and 2011 as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">About 75 schools or organisations had been selected from different parts of India, including Delhi and NCR, and other states to participate in the programme. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Congratulating the successful participants for their rare achievement, SPACE group CMD Sachin Bahmba said, "These children will eventually become the torch bearers of the scientific temper in the coming future." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">IASC is an international educational outreach programme which includes Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley and Global Hands-on-Universe Association (USA) and other International organizations, which conduct programmes enabling students to be involved in hands-on, real time astronomy.--NNN-BERNAMA <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Schoolboys from India Discover Asteroids

NEW DELHI, India (NNN-Bernama) -- In what is being considered a rare feat by experts, four schoolboys from Delhi have discovered two aster...

India to Launch 5 Satellites This Year

India to Launch 5 Satellites This Year

NEW DELHI (NNN-Bernama) -- India is to launch at least five satellites this year, Xinhua news agency reported. "Three satellites n...

NASA Set to Land Rover on Mars

NASA Set to Land Rover on Mars

By VOA News NASA is set to land an exploratory vehicle on the planet Mars early Monday morning. The nuclear powered, one-ton rover, c...

Iran to Launch Monkey into Space

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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Iran will orbit a rocket with a live monkey on board later this month, Iranian Space Agency chief Dr. Hamid Fazeli said on Wednesday, the country's IRNA news agency reported.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Kavoshgar-5 satellite carrier with a bio-capsule holding a rhesus monkey is to be launched between August 19 and 20, he added.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The rocket will be orbited at an altitude of 120 to 130 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“We have fully packed the cargo which is to be launched into space with a solid-fuel rocket,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Iran to Launch Monkey into Space

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Iran will orbit a rocket with a live monkey on board later this month, Iranian Space Agency chief Dr. Hamid Fazeli...

China's Shenzhou 9 Spacecraft Returns to Earth

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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">NNN--- <i>Chinese astronauts preparing to get out of the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-9 spacecraft in Siziwang Banner of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The Shenzhou-9 spacecraft landed safely on 29 June 2012 morning after 13 days in space on a historic mission that made their country the third nation ever to successfully dock a manned spacecraft to another in orbit. Photo courtesy xinhua</i>---NNN</span></div></div>

China's Shenzhou 9 Spacecraft Returns to Earth

NNN--- Chinese astronauts preparing to get out of the re-entry capsule of Shenzhou-9 spacecraft in Siziwang Banner of north China's ...

India: Former President Urges India to Take Up Greater Space Challenges

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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (NNN-Bernama) -- Former president of India and space scientist A P J Abdul Kalam said it is time India took up greater space challenges like launching manned space mission to the moon and mars, Press Trust of India reported. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">While addressing the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology's convocation ceremony here on Thursday, Kalam suggested the country also develop hypersonic reusable vehicles for cost-effective space transportation and solar satellites to harness energy for power and drinking water. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Kalam, who is the institute's chancellor, said India could come up with navigational satellites and a mechanism for refueling, repair and maintenance of satellites in geostationary orbit. -- NNN-BERNAMA<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

India: Former President Urges India to Take Up Greater Space Challenges

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (NNN-Bernama) -- Former president of India and space scientist A P J Abdul Kalam said it is time India took up ...

Chinese Astronauts Enter Space Lab after Successful Docking Manouevre

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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">An NNN-Xinhua Special Report by Li Huizi, Jia Yong & Li Xuanliang<o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OODgVYAGDPmVgGBbp-QJI39hbm8rKkZrn4kCRdQSvzxX_2CQATlW5EnRucO5gPzGhhOg6amXWXhtmMorv2VbFu3ZMi3st-QIQ_OBAulKF9gHW-tKUTOg8cxVdpefGhNpuHeHCGnP1TM/s1600/2012061812574988.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OODgVYAGDPmVgGBbp-QJI39hbm8rKkZrn4kCRdQSvzxX_2CQATlW5EnRucO5gPzGhhOg6amXWXhtmMorv2VbFu3ZMi3st-QIQ_OBAulKF9gHW-tKUTOg8cxVdpefGhNpuHeHCGnP1TM/s640/2012061812574988.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Chinese Shenzhou-9 Spacecraft Set To Dock With Tiangong-1.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Mission commander Jing Haipeng (right), a veteran astronaut who has gone to space twice, together with fellow astronauts Liu Wang (center) and Liu Yang, China’s first female astronaut (left), as they wave to the crowd prior to boarding the Shenzhou-9 spacecraft. The Shenzhou-9 spaceship was successfully launched in Jiuquan space base, northwest China’s Gansu province in the remote Gobi desert on Sat 16 June 2012 and is scheduled to conduct the country’s first manned space docking with space lab module Tiangong-1 on 18 June 2012. Photo courtesy Yonhap News---NNN<o:p></o:p></span></i></div></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">BEIJING (NNN-XINHUA) -- The three Chinese astronauts have entered the country's orbiting space laboratory Tiangong-1 for the first time and they will live and work there for about 10 days, paving the way for the construction of a space station around 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">China has become the third nation, after the United States and Russia, to acquire the skills necessary for extra-vehicular activities and space docking, and, by acquiring these skills; the nation has gained confidence in its high-tech development capabilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Acquiring space docking skills allows China to supply manpower and material to an orbiting module, marking a significant step forward in China's manned space programme which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">More importantly, China's ancient dream of "Flying Apsaras" as enshrined in the frescoes of the Dunhuang Caves, has been realized.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The leapfrog development of China's manned space programme can be attributed to the country's initiative of reform and opening-up, according to Zhou Jianping, the chief designer of the space programme.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The progress has greatly benefited the lives of ordinary people. It is estimated that an investment of one yuan (about 15.7 US cents) in the space programme will yield a return of seven to 12 yuan. The development of the programme has also sped up the research of new materials.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However, China is undoubtedly a latecomer in space development compared with the US and Russia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"The Chinese programme may lag behind the US, but it is taking incremental steps and building upon each one. Furthermore, now that the US is dependent on Russia for transporting its astronauts to the International Space Station, China is being perceived increasingly as a major space power," said Dr. Erik Seedhouse, a Canadian space analyst.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"While China's human spaceflight accomplishments to date put it roughly where the US and the Soviet Union were in the mid-1960s, China has consistently stuck to a development timeline for its programme and met the realistic goals set out in its Five-year Plans. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"Their programme has been a steady but un-rushed effort to develop technologies and extend its capacities."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The space analyst said China's comprehensive, moderately-paced programme was more than capable of landing its astronauts on the Moon "within the next 10 years".<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The progress of the country's manned space programme reflects a path of self-reliance and innovation, offering an example for development with Chinese characteristics.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Today's China is no longer merely the world's manufacturer of shoes, stockings and cigarette lighters; the nation has gained confidence in its development of space technology. -- NNN-XINHUA<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>

Chinese Astronauts Enter Space Lab after Successful Docking Manouevre

An NNN-Xinhua Special Report by Li Huizi, Jia Yong & Li Xuanliang Chinese Shenzhou-9 Spacecraft Set To Dock With Tiangong-1. Missio...

China Puts First Female Astronaut in Space

<div style="color:; background-color:; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">By Stephanie Ho<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><br></span></b></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">BEIJING - China successfully launched its first woman astronaut into orbit on a mission that marks an important step in the country's plans to build a permanent space station.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">The Shenzhou 9 spacecraft blasted into space Saturday under clear skies at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in western Gansu province.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">The spacecraft carries a crew of three astronauts, including China's first female in space, Liu Yang. The Shenzhou 9 is set to dock with another spacecraft, Tiangong 1, which is in orbit more than 300 kilometers above Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">One of the Chinese government's highest-ranking female officials, State Councilor Liu Yandong, read a letter of congratulations from Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is on a visit to Denmark. Speaking through an interpreter, she said Hu sees the docking mission as a "big milestone" for China.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">"I'd like all of you to continue your spirit of hard work and achieve complete success in our first manned space docking mission, and to create new achievements for our manned space program," said Liu.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">China's top legislator, Wu Bangguo, presided over a mission send-off ceremony, and was shown on television monitoring events from the control room.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">During the launch video monitors showed live images of the three-person crew, which appeared to be calm while reading handbooks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">Astronaut Liu Wang will be mainly in charge of a manual docking of the Shenzhou-9 with the Tiangong-1, a task that will be performed in coming days. Speaking Friday, he said this will be very difficult.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">He said the manual rendezvous requires a lot of technology and skills, so he has rehearsed the maneuver more than 1,500 times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">Mission commander Jing Haipeng said he is still excited even though this is his third time in space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">He added that with China's growing space industry, he expects that in the future, there will be many more astronauts who will make multiple missions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></div>  <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:kashida;text-kashida: 0%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:115%;font-family:"Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"">The crew is expected to spend 13 days in space, conducting scientific, medical and technological experiments. ---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div><div><ul></ul></div></div>

China Puts First Female Astronaut in Space

By Stephanie Ho BEIJING - China successfully launched its first woman astronaut into orbit on a mission that marks an important step in th...

Venus to Make Final Passage Across Sun Until 2117

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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jMDcn2d0vORFR-yd88up3-O4oPPrY71RtatoCOA4dK2bX_0MkKeAwo3WfKG0e41oQV3COu4h3XRxd-kukaB6gg1mNySSg8Q1QthriIMjeYvIIRQegBx-uqG_bxaMKUHd6OyWSK6LuVM/s1600/2012060616274011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="413" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5jMDcn2d0vORFR-yd88up3-O4oPPrY71RtatoCOA4dK2bX_0MkKeAwo3WfKG0e41oQV3COu4h3XRxd-kukaB6gg1mNySSg8Q1QthriIMjeYvIIRQegBx-uqG_bxaMKUHd6OyWSK6LuVM/s640/2012060616274011.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="line-height: 12.5pt; margin-bottom: 6.25pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 18.8pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 7.5pt;">NNN--- VENUS MAKES RARE TREK ACROSS SUN. Another once-in-a-lifetime kind of transit of planet Venus (a planet crossing the face of Sun) started in Mabul Island, Sarawak, Malaysia on 6 June 2012 from 6.10am to 12.40pm. Size of planet Venus when viewed from Earth appeared to be a small black circle crossover on the surface of the Sun. The transit phenomenon has occurred in 1874 and 1882, and then in 2004 and 2012. One of the rarest astronomical events occurs, when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, which will only occur again on 2117. Photo courtesy images.bernama.com---NNN<o:p></o:p></span></div></td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Skywatchers around the world will have the chance to witness one of the galaxy's rarest astronomical events - Venus passing between the Sun and the Earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The six-and-a-half hour long passage begins Tuesday at 2209 UTC. Skywatchers on all seven continents will be able to view it - except for a large portion of South America and western Africa.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Venus will appear as a small, black dot as it crosses in front of the Sun. However, experts warn to never look directly at the Sun - doing so can permanently damage eyesight or cause blindness.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The passage will be shown on a number of websites including NASA's and the European Space Agency's.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Transits of Venus always occur in pairs, eight years apart, with more than a century separating each pair.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tuesday's transit bookends the 2004-2012 pair and will be the last time the phenomena occurs until 2117. The last passage occurred in 1874.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://pib.nic.in/photo//2012/Jun/l2012060640983.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://pib.nic.in/photo//2012/Jun/l2012060640983.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;">Beauty Spot on Sun: Transit of Venus on June 06, 2012. PIB Photo</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Observations of transits in previous centuries allowed astronomers to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Sun - some 150 million kilometers.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Earth-to-Sun measurement gave scientists the final piece of information they needed to accurately determine the size of the solar system for the first time - and ultimately, the sizes and distances of everything in the cosmos. ---VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>

Venus to Make Final Passage Across Sun Until 2117

NNN--- VENUS MAKES RARE TREK ACROSS SUN. Another once-in-a-lifetime kind of transit of planet Venus (a planet crossing the face of Sun) s...

Partial Solar Eclipse in India on May 21: Scientist

Partial Solar Eclipse in India on May 21: Scientist

INDORE, India (NNN-Bernama) -- Sky gazers in India have a reason to be happy this month as a partial solar eclipse is expected to be see...

Milky Way Likely Has Tens of Billions of Rocky 'Super-Earths'

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) say new data indicates there is an abundance of rocky Super-Earth-type planets orbiting in the habitable zones of a common type of star known as a red dwarf.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>They estimate there are tens of billions within our Milky Way galaxy alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Super-earth is the term astronomers use to describe a type of rocky planet outside our solar system - an exoplanet - that measures less than 10 times the mass of the Earth. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The ESO astronomers say their calculations show that about 40 percent of all red dwarf stars have a super-Earth orbiting within a habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the surface of the planet - the best indicator for the possibility of extraterrestrial life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The researchers made the new findings from data collected with the planet-finding HARPS spectrograph at ESO’s La Silla observatory in Chile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>They say HARPS’ observations provided the first direct measurement of the frequency of super-Earths orbiting red dwarf stars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Red dwarfs are small, cool stars that have an extraordinarily long evolutionary life, and therefore are very common.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>They comprise an estimated 80 percent of the stars in the Milky Way - that amounts to around 160 billion red dwarfs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">   </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The results of a separate study announced earlier this year indicated that rocky Earth-like worlds far outnumber massive gas-giant planets in the Milky Way galaxy. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The new ESO study will be published in the journal, Astronomy and Astrophysics. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Red dwarfs may be among the most ubiquitous of stars in the cosmos, but our relatively young, bright, yellow Sun is not one of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Milky Way galaxy has a diameter of approximately 120,000 light years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That means it would take 120,000 years for light to travel across the galaxy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>The speed of light is 300,000 kilometers per second. --- VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Milky Way Likely Has Tens of Billions of Rocky 'Super-Earths'

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) say new data indicates there is an abundance of rocky Super-Earth-type planets orbi...

India to Launch Home-Built Risat-1 Next Month

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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:city w:st="on"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">BANGALORE</span></span></st1:city><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;"> (NNN-BERNAMA) --<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> is expected to launch next month an indigenously designed and developed satellite that has the unique capability of imaging during day and night and in all weather conditions. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">"The Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-1) is likely to be launched in the second half of April from Sriharikota space port," an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) official told Press Trust of India (PTI) here on Tuesday. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">The spacecraft, country's first microwave remote sensing satellite, was originally scheduled to be launched this month but the ISRO row, the fallout of the punitive action against four former space scientists for their role in the Antrix-Devas deal, delayed the preparations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">Nearly two years ago, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> launched a Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT-2) with all weather capability and ability to penetrate through clouds but it was realised in association with Israel Aerospace Industries. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">Bangalore-headquartered ISRO said RISAT-2 has enhanced the country's capability in the management of disasters. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">RISAT-1, weighing around 1850 kg, is slated for launch by ISRO's workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C19 (XL)) into a 536 km orbit. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">Besides use in the agriculture sector, RISAT-1 could also be used to keep round-the-clock vigil on the country's borders and help in anti-terrorist and anti-infiltration operations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background: white;">The satellite carries a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload, operating in a multi-polarisation and multi-resolution mode to provide images with coarse, fine and high spatial resolutions respectively.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></div>

India to Launch Home-Built Risat-1 Next Month

BANGALORE (NNN-BERNAMA) -- India is expected to launch next month an indigenously designed and developed satellite that has the unique c...

Massive Solar Storm Has Little Effect on Earth

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<div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Solar Storm Facts</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><br />
</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A solar flare is a burst of magnetic energy pent up in the solar atmosphere that creates a wave of charged particles</span></i></b><span dir="RTL"></span><b><i><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="color: red; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A solar explosion releases a coronal mass ejection that emits huge amounts of electromagnetic radiation that can disrupt the magnetic fields on Earth</span></i></b><span dir="RTL"></span><b><i><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="color: red; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Astronomers observe these flares as bright white lights</span></i></b><span dir="RTL"></span><b><i><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="color: red; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Solar flares are the biggest explosion in the solar system</span></i></b><span dir="RTL"></span><b><i><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="color: red; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="color: red; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><b><i><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="color: red; font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><br />
</span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The first solar storm was recorded in 1859 in England by a young astronomer</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A massive solar storm initially expected to create havoc for everything from mobile phones to airline flights has reached Earth with little effect, but experts say that could still change</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The storm appeared to spare satellite and power systems as it shook the Earth's magnetic field Thursday, with no reports of GPS or power disruptions. A scientist with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Joseph Kunches, said the storm struck in a direction that causes the least amount of problems. But he said that orientation could change as the storm continues</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The storm started with a pair of solar flares Tuesday, and continued with two coronal mass ejections that sent massive amounts of energy and charged particles shooting out of the sun</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The particles were expected to strike the Earth at a speed of more than six million kilometers per hour.  Forecasters had warned the storm could disrupt radio communications, satellite networks, global positioning systems and electricity grids. Some airlines even moved to reroute their flights to avoid problems. But ultimately, the storm ended up registering at the lowest intensity on a five-level scale</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The storm also carries the potential to produce brilliant auroras, known as the Northern and Southern Lights, which occur as the particles from the solar ejection mix with the Earth's magnetic fields</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Scientists say the storm is part of the sun's normal 11-year cycle, when activity on the surface rises to its peak level.  A strong storm in 1989 knocked out the power grid in Quebec, leaving millions of residents without electricity</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.  </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The U.S. space agency NASA had said it did not believe the storm would affect the International Space Station or its six-member crew</span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="RTL"></span>.</span><span dir="LTR"></span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><span dir="LTR"></span> </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">--- VOA News<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Massive Solar Storm Has Little Effect on Earth

Solar Storm Facts A solar flare is a burst of magnetic energy pent up in the solar atmosphere that creates a wave of charged particles . A...

Orbiting Cosmonauts Vote for New Russian President

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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal" dir="LTR" style="direction: ltr; text-align: left; unicode-bidi: embed;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/badastronomy/3416091358/sizes/m/in/photostream/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Photo: flickr.com/badastronomy</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></i></div></td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) --- Three Russian cosmonauts cast their ballots for the Russian presidential elections on Sunday from the international space station, Russia’s Mission Control said on Sunday.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, Anatoly Ivanishin and Oleg Kononenko voted during a special communications session through their proxy while the world’s sole orbiter was flying over the Hawaiian Islands, Mission Control said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“Dmitry Zhukov, head of the Cosmonaut Training Center's press office, took the votes of the three International Space Station crewmembers from a private room, where cosmonauts normally talk to their families during flights, and filled in ballot papers and put them into the ballot box after being told how to vote by each of them,” Mission Control said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Representatives of Russia’s Central Election Commission and the election commission of the Moscow Region, where Mission Control is located, and Russian journalists watched the voting process.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">“The practice of voting by proxy during work in orbit was introduced during (former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s) perestroika in the late 1980s at the Russian orbiter Mir,” Mission Control said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Russians are voting on Sunday to elect a president for the fifth time in the nation’s post-Soviet history. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin faces four opponents, none of which, analysts say, is likely to prove a serious threat to his bid.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Putin was president from 2000 to 2008 but was forced to stand down by the Constitution, which limits the presidency to two "consecutive" terms.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Orbiting Cosmonauts Vote for New Russian President

Photo: flickr.com/badastronomy MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) --- Three Russian cosmonauts cast their ballots for the Russian presidential elect...

Heavy Ions Killed Mars Probe – Investigators

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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">MOSCOW</span></st1:city></st1:place><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"> (RIA Novosti, Alexey Eremenko) --- Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt was lost because space radiation disrupted its computer system, a commission investigating the incident said on Friday.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">The investigation found no faults with the spacecraft’s hardware, the commission said in a summary of its report, released on the website of the Federal Space Agency.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Phobos-Grunt</span></st1:city><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></span></st1:place><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">’s first interplanetary probe in years was to travel to Phobos, a moon of Mars, and bring back samples of its soil by 2014. The $165 million spacecraft was launched in November, but got stuck in low Earth orbit.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Attempts to restore contact with Phobos-Grunt failed and in January, the 13-ton probe crashed into the Pacific Ocean west of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Chile</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">The commission to investigate the incident, created by the Federal Space Agency, studied more than 700 documents related to Phobos-Grunt’s construction, as well as data from its short-lived flight.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">All units of the spacecraft withstood rigorous testing on Earth and functioned properly during the launch, the commission said in its report.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">But heavy ion bombardment corrupted program code in two components of the probe’s computer, which resulted in the loss of the probe, the commission said. The version of the incident was reported earlier this week by Kommersant daily, but not confirmed officially at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">The commission did not elaborate on why the developers took no measures to protect Phobos-Grunt against such incidents.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Yury Koptev, who heads the investigation into the incident, speculated last month that Phobos-Grunt’s computer could have been disrupted by <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> radar on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Marshall Islands</st1:place></st1:country-region>, but that version was eventually discarded.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Russia</span></st1:country-region></st1:place><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"> has lost five satellites and a space truck in failed launches since December 2010. The first failures cost Federal Space Agency head Anatoly Perminov his job last April, but his replacement, Vladimir Popovkin, failed to break the spell.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Developers should have installed several backup systems to counter malfunctions such as one that brought Phobos-Grunt down, Nikolai Vedenkin, a researcher at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Moscow</st1:placename>  <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place> who supervised the university’s own space program, said by telephone on Friday.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">“Either the whole system was configured wrong, or it’s simply not true,” Vedenkin said about the commission’s version of the reasons for Phobos-Grunt’s crash.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">He said the probe was likely lost because of confusion during its development and testing, which was rushed and saw the head constructor changed mid-project.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">“The mistakes snowballed, and the probe was launched when still not ready,” Vedenkin said.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Heavy Ions Killed Mars Probe – Investigators

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti, Alexey Eremenko) --- Russian Mars probe Phobos-Grunt was lost because space radiation disrupted its computer system,...

Life Spotted on Venus - Russian Scientist

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDs7yAMXHVQbcOfcLZxw76G_B5ryNUHWyo0ARze8GN8yvSTRBx5E1aIJQN9Osk-pECwPWXbiU50i9Ruo_UUzkrsZx3TGsT11U6knfIHaElaVvN6CcPQ2ciLtLqlcAQ3XP2clR1D_wW5k/s1600/43833500_4cd9c5d982_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPDs7yAMXHVQbcOfcLZxw76G_B5ryNUHWyo0ARze8GN8yvSTRBx5E1aIJQN9Osk-pECwPWXbiU50i9Ruo_UUzkrsZx3TGsT11U6knfIHaElaVvN6CcPQ2ciLtLqlcAQ3XP2clR1D_wW5k/s400/43833500_4cd9c5d982_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 8.0pt;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/madmiked/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">© Flickr.com/madmiked<o:p></o:p></span></a></span></i></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: '\'Trebuchet MS\''; font-size: 13.5pt;">MOSCOW (RIA Novosti)- Several objects resembling living beings have been detected on photos made by a Russian landing probe in 1982 during a Venus mission, Solar System Research magazine reported.</span></i></b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">Leonid Ksanfomaliti of the Space Research Institute of Russia’s <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Academy</st1:placetype>  of <st1:placename w:st="on">Sciences</st1:placename></st1:place> published research that analyzed the photos from the Venus mission made by a Soviet landing probe, Venus-13, in 1982.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">The photos feature several objects, which Ksanfomaliti said, resembled “a disk,” “a black flap” and “a scorpion.” All of them “emerge, fluctuate and disappear,” the scientist said, referring to their changing location on different photos and traces on the ground.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">"What if we forget about the current theories about the nonexistence of life on Venus, let’s boldly suggest that the objects’ morphological features would allow us to say that they are living,” Solar System Research quoted Ksanfomaliti as saying.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';">No data proving the existence of life on Venus, where the ground temperature is 464 degrees Celsius (867 degrees Fahrenheit), has ever been found before.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Life Spotted on Venus - Russian Scientist

NASA Puts Twin Probes in Lunar Orbit

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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">MOSCOW</span></st1:city></st1:place><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> (RIA Novosti) - Two robotic probes on a synchronized gravity-mapping mission to the Moon began orbiting the Earth’s natural satellite over the weekend, NASA said on its website.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The twin Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft were launched on a 2.6-million-mile roundabout trip to the Moon on September 10 last year.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Over the next two months, the orbit of the solar-powered probes will be adjusted so that at the start of the science phase in March they will be in a near-polar, near-circular orbit with an altitude of about 55 kilometers (34 miles).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">During the 82-day science phase of the mission, the probes will fly in formation low over lunar poles and transmit data on changes in the distance between the two craft back to Earth. Scientists will translate this information into a high-resolution map of the moon's gravitational field.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“The data will allow scientists to understand what goes on below the lunar surface,” NASA said on Sunday. “This information will increase knowledge of how Earth and its rocky neighbors in the inner solar system developed into the diverse worlds we see today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">If the spacecraft remain operational after the partial lunar eclipse in June, the scientists plan to extend the $496-million mission to take an even closer look at the Moon’s gravitational field by lowering the probes’ orbit to 25 km (15.5 miles).<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

NASA Puts Twin Probes in Lunar Orbit

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Two robotic probes on a synchronized gravity-mapping mission to the Moon began orbiting the Earth’s natural satell...

Online Volunteers to Be Asked To Search for Alien Proof

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<h5 style="background: white; margin-bottom: 4.5pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">MOSCOW</span></st1:city></st1:place><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;"> (RIA Novosti) - American scientists want to use online volunteers to look for signs of alein life in moon images collected by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft, an article in the Acta Astronautica journal said.<o:p></o:p></span></h5><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">“Although there is only a tiny probability that alien technology would have left traces on the moon in the form of an artifact or surface modification of lunar features, this location has the virtue of being close, and of preserving traces for an immense duration," Paul Davies and Robert Wagner from Arizona State University wrote.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">LRO has taken photographs of a quarter of the moon’s surface in high-resolution since 2009. The collection amounts to some 340,000 images of the moon and the number is growing all the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Davies and Wagner said that to study and scan all these images could not be done by even large scientific teams. They proposed two ways of solving this problem.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">One way is to write software to search for strange-looking features and the second is to send amateur enthusiasts images over the internet to have them search for artifacts that might have been left by aliens as signs to other intelligent beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Online Volunteers to Be Asked To Search for Alien Proof

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - American scientists want to use online volunteers to look for signs of alein life in moon images collected by NASA...