Slashdot Mirror

glinden writes: "Two telescopes at the Kech Observatory have been optically linked to form the Keck Interferometer. The resolving power of this combined telescope will apparently be sufficient to see earth-sized planets around nearby stars." quoll contributes a link to NASA's own version of the story, too.

glinden writes: "Two telescopes at the Kech Observatory have been optically linked to form the Keck Interferometer. The resolving power of this combined telescope will apparently be sufficient to see earth-sized planets around nearby stars." quoll contributes a link to NASA's own version of the story, too.

Anonymous Coward writes "In between all the bad news about Linux it's nice to see some good like this story about Linux getting used by NASA for satellite control I saw on NewsForge. It is on Linux Today too. This is not some garage dream but a real NASA project run by a real rocket scientist. Does ThinkGeek sell 'Tux in Space' T shirts yet? I want one!" NASA has a page for FlightLinux.

deran9ed writes "The Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory present their latest findings from NASA's Lunar Prospector mission at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas. The Los Alamos studies include data on Moonquake activity, further confirmation of the presence of water-ice on the moon, and mapping of iron and titanium using gamma-rays emitted when cosmic rays slam into the lunar surface. Here's the story on spacer.com."

xpccx writes: "I've seen in several scientific journals articles about a device called a 'Smart Probe.' It's a device from BioLuminate which is licensing technologies from NASA and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. (Read more.)

From the press release:

Sensors on the tip of the probe measure optical, electrical and chemical properties that are known to differ between healthy and cancerous tissues. The "Smart Probe" can detect multiple (5 to 7) known indicators of breast cancer. Tissue measurements are made in real time in both normal and suspect tissue.

I did a Google search and information can be found here(1), here(2) and here(3) amongst others.

It's still an invasive procedure, but if it does work it would be a great relief to women who would normally go through unecessary biopsies. "In the U.S. each week, approximately 16,000 women undergo unnecessary, surgical breast biopsies on suspicious tissue that turns out benign.""

Kumba writes: "Found this news story while browsing NASA's webpage. Before the NEAR Satellite arrived at Eros, scientists wondered what Eros was, be it a piece of a planet that broke up billions of years ago or a jumble of boulders held together by weak gravity. Now NASA believes Eros to be one of the building blocks of our solar system, what astronomers call planetesimals. It's a very interesting article to read, briefly explaining how our solar system came to be through the formation of these planetesimals and proto planets, and other such neat stuff."

yulek writes: "Yesterday's APOD ran an incredible photograph from the recently completed SNO Detector, a giant geodesic neutrino detector buried 2km (!) underground near Kingston Ontario. Neutrinos are some of the most bizarre subatomic particles, having virtually no mass and able to 'pass through matter like smoke.' The SNO Detecter is definitely one of the coolest and most ambitious experiments i've seen in recent years."

yulek writes: "Yesterday's APOD ran an incredible photograph from the recently completed SNO Detector, a giant geodesic neutrino detector buried 2km (!) underground near Kingston Ontario. Neutrinos are some of the most bizarre subatomic particles, having virtually no mass and able to 'pass through matter like smoke.' The SNO Detecter is definitely one of the coolest and most ambitious experiments i've seen in recent years."

Celestius writes "This press release from NASA Ames states that 'An international team of researchers has discovered compelling evidence that the magnetite crystals in the martian meteorite ALH84001 are of biological origin,' and moreover that these crystals are not only older than any previously known form of life, but were also definitely formed before the meteor fell to Earth. Skeptics remain, of course, as quoted in this article from today's Chronicle, but suffice to say, NASA seems pretty confident." There's also a report on the BBC as well.

We'll start this off with Ant's submission -- a hilarious story about The Endor Holocaust which no doubt follows the destruction of the 2nd Death Star. After reading something so clear, confuse your mind confuse your mind (thanks to The Musician). Now that you are adequately confused, cardoso sent us a ridiculous flash app where you can control dancers. This will put you in the mood to enjoy the most retro homepage ever, sent in by mvw Got some money to burn? Check out the Spinal Tap Guitar which features among other things, chrome exhaust pipes and a tachometer that (of course) goes to 11. If you're not a musician, maybe you'd be interested in Randy Rathbun's link to personalized action figures: I could send in my mugshot and be immortalized in plastic, standing forever atop my monitors with Darth, Goku, and Trinity! Or maybe you wanna buy a Dalek? If you're on more of a budget, Jay Novak sent us a great t-shirt from copyleft considering all the layoffs around the net companies. With all of these great things to waste cash on, you might need some cash: geekguy sent in a funny list of ways to cash in on Doom without wasting time making a game (like for example, Doom breakfast serial! Free BFG inside!) Just get id to license ya! For you do-it-yourselfers, mr100percent submitted what might be the most impressive automotive MP3 player ever. The Pathintosh is a beautifully integrated Mac complete w/ steering wheel controls, and a custom bezel. And finally, the eycandy. First up is davco9200's link to Daily Astronomy Astropix which is actually pretty sweet: today is Mars Dunes. Second and last of all, the pr0n: Jeff K sent in Unix-Sex which features sysadmins getting it on w/ Sun Hardware. Thats why we don't let them work 3rd shift.

hohosforbreakfast writes "According to CNN, NASA launched the largest single-cell, fully-sealed balloon ever from Australia. This thing is supposed to be as large as a football (American) stadium once it's fully inflated, and flies 20 miles high. It'll circumnavigate the globe and then be landed by remote control in Australia. It looks like this flight is a proof-of-concept, but more flights, lasting 100 days each, are planned. Looks like an interesting alternative to satellites for certain observations. The official site is here."

critic666 asks: "I've been doing some research on space junk (trash orbiting the Earth), but most of the discussion about it seems to come from 1996 - 98. The only recent thing I've seen about space junk is from an Aug 20, 2000 article on NASA creating a laser "broom" to cleanup this trash. Does anyone know if anything's really being done about space junk now, is it just kind of a static issue, or have we solved the problem?" Most of Earth's "artificial satellites", as I like to call them, have orbits that will eventually destabilize, so that they'll eventually burn up on re-entry, however, this doesn't mean that there isn't still quite a lot of junk up there. NASA maintains a database of most of the larger pieces and does track them via radar and the Johnson Space Center maintains their own page on the subject. You might want to check out the FAQ. Thoughts?

critic666 asks: "I've been doing some research on space junk (trash orbiting the Earth), but most of the discussion about it seems to come from 1996 - 98. The only recent thing I've seen about space junk is from an Aug 20, 2000 article on NASA creating a laser "broom" to cleanup this trash. Does anyone know if anything's really being done about space junk now, is it just kind of a static issue, or have we solved the problem?" Most of Earth's "artificial satellites", as I like to call them, have orbits that will eventually destabilize, so that they'll eventually burn up on re-entry, however, this doesn't mean that there isn't still quite a lot of junk up there. NASA maintains a database of most of the larger pieces and does track them via radar and the Johnson Space Center maintains their own page on the subject. You might want to check out the FAQ. Thoughts?

An anonymous reeader writes "The other day the Fox Network showed an ill-researched program about how the moon landings were hoaxed. Nasa has responded on their front page, here. Since the community here appreciates science, here is a page originally linked to on the NASA site about refuting the illogical arguments of non-believers: badastronomy.com."

Bottomquark writes "Tonight NASA scientist Charley Kohlhase, who has led trip-planning efforts for NASA missions to most of the planets in the solar system, will give a live webcast presentation called 'From Ellipses to Gravity Assists'. He'll explain how to choose the best routes for getting to destinations such as Mercury, Mars and Saturn, and describe how spacecraft can use the gravity of one planet to gain a "slingshot" boost toward a more distant destination. The 90 minute presentation takes place February 13, 2001 4:30-6:00 PM (PST) (24:30 GMT - 02:00 GMT), and will be broacast through LiveOntheNet.com (free registration required)."

Every once in a while NASA does something amazing. Today they took a probe that was just supposed to orbit a rock the size of Manhattan, guided it down to the surface, reoriented the dish, and sent back a hello from ground zero. The NEAR Shoemaker mission site and its mirror are a little busy at the moment, but CNN's coverage is good, with simulated video, and actual photos from two hundred million miles up. Some engineers, and the operators at Johns Hopkins, must be awfully proud right about now.

Every once in a while NASA does something amazing. Today they took a probe that was just supposed to orbit a rock the size of Manhattan, guided it down to the surface, reoriented the dish, and sent back a hello from ground zero. The NEAR Shoemaker mission site and its mirror are a little busy at the moment, but CNN's coverage is good, with simulated video, and actual photos from two hundred million miles up. Some engineers, and the operators at Johns Hopkins, must be awfully proud right about now.

ScottMaxwell writes: "Though the date passed with little notice, JPL's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft recently completed its primary mission, to study Mars for a full Martian year (about 687 Earth days). It's returned more mission data than all previous Mars missions combined, including some of the best evidence yet that water once flowed freely on the Martian surface. Check out the project's Web site for more info and images (including my personal favorite) as MGS moves into its extended mission."

ScottMaxwell writes: "Though the date passed with little notice, JPL's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft recently completed its primary mission, to study Mars for a full Martian year (about 687 Earth days). It's returned more mission data than all previous Mars missions combined, including some of the best evidence yet that water once flowed freely on the Martian surface. Check out the project's Web site for more info and images (including my personal favorite) as MGS moves into its extended mission."

ScottMaxwell writes: "Though the date passed with little notice, JPL's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft recently completed its primary mission, to study Mars for a full Martian year (about 687 Earth days). It's returned more mission data than all previous Mars missions combined, including some of the best evidence yet that water once flowed freely on the Martian surface. Check out the project's Web site for more info and images (including my personal favorite) as MGS moves into its extended mission."

ScottMaxwell writes: "Though the date passed with little notice, JPL's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft recently completed its primary mission, to study Mars for a full Martian year (about 687 Earth days). It's returned more mission data than all previous Mars missions combined, including some of the best evidence yet that water once flowed freely on the Martian surface. Check out the project's Web site for more info and images (including my personal favorite) as MGS moves into its extended mission."

ScottMaxwell writes: "Though the date passed with little notice, JPL's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft recently completed its primary mission, to study Mars for a full Martian year (about 687 Earth days). It's returned more mission data than all previous Mars missions combined, including some of the best evidence yet that water once flowed freely on the Martian surface. Check out the project's Web site for more info and images (including my personal favorite) as MGS moves into its extended mission."

delorean writes "The Shuttle Atlantis lifted off last night on a spectacular evening launch. It had to be the most beautiful launch I've seen, even if it was only by TV. Check out this pic of the boosters rockets falling away. The Shuttle is carrying the Destiny Laboratory for the International Space Station, the most expensive piece of equipment for the multi-national effort. Once the Destiny is hooked up and online the control of the ISS will switch over to a special Mission Control center in Houston instead of Russia. Get the incredible statistics about the assembly here. Read the Mission goal, Realtime Tracking of the Shuttle and ISS here and catch Sightings here."

delorean writes "The Shuttle Atlantis lifted off last night on a spectacular evening launch. It had to be the most beautiful launch I've seen, even if it was only by TV. Check out this pic of the boosters rockets falling away. The Shuttle is carrying the Destiny Laboratory for the International Space Station, the most expensive piece of equipment for the multi-national effort. Once the Destiny is hooked up and online the control of the ISS will switch over to a special Mission Control center in Houston instead of Russia. Get the incredible statistics about the assembly here. Read the Mission goal, Realtime Tracking of the Shuttle and ISS here and catch Sightings here."

delorean writes "The Shuttle Atlantis lifted off last night on a spectacular evening launch. It had to be the most beautiful launch I've seen, even if it was only by TV. Check out this pic of the boosters rockets falling away. The Shuttle is carrying the Destiny Laboratory for the International Space Station, the most expensive piece of equipment for the multi-national effort. Once the Destiny is hooked up and online the control of the ISS will switch over to a special Mission Control center in Houston instead of Russia. Get the incredible statistics about the assembly here. Read the Mission goal, Realtime Tracking of the Shuttle and ISS here and catch Sightings here."

delorean writes "The Shuttle Atlantis lifted off last night on a spectacular evening launch. It had to be the most beautiful launch I've seen, even if it was only by TV. Check out this pic of the boosters rockets falling away. The Shuttle is carrying the Destiny Laboratory for the International Space Station, the most expensive piece of equipment for the multi-national effort. Once the Destiny is hooked up and online the control of the ISS will switch over to a special Mission Control center in Houston instead of Russia. Get the incredible statistics about the assembly here. Read the Mission goal, Realtime Tracking of the Shuttle and ISS here and catch Sightings here."

delorean writes "The Shuttle Atlantis lifted off last night on a spectacular evening launch. It had to be the most beautiful launch I've seen, even if it was only by TV. Check out this pic of the boosters rockets falling away. The Shuttle is carrying the Destiny Laboratory for the International Space Station, the most expensive piece of equipment for the multi-national effort. Once the Destiny is hooked up and online the control of the ISS will switch over to a special Mission Control center in Houston instead of Russia. Get the incredible statistics about the assembly here. Read the Mission goal, Realtime Tracking of the Shuttle and ISS here and catch Sightings here."

clay pigeon writes "This EE Times article covers the development of open-source processors. No doubt exciting news for hardware hackers and those with a need to know about every last detail of their systems, but how will this effect the hardware industry? Can open-source hardware duplicate the success of the open-source software movement?" I'm not holding my breath. Fabrication facilities are a lot more expensive then a CD-ROM presses (or more accurately, internet connections). But I still hope it happens. It would be an interesting market if everyone worked together on the designs, but built their own chips.

__roo writes: "According to this press release, NASA scientists were able to control a 757 jumbo jet simulation using neurolectric machine control -- muscle-nerve signals fed to a computer, which used a neural net to learn how to interpret the signals. The first prototype armband was made from exercise tights, and used metallic dress-buttons as dry electrodes. This page has high resolution photos of the device."

__roo writes: "According to this press release, NASA scientists were able to control a 757 jumbo jet simulation using neurolectric machine control -- muscle-nerve signals fed to a computer, which used a neural net to learn how to interpret the signals. The first prototype armband was made from exercise tights, and used metallic dress-buttons as dry electrodes. This page has high resolution photos of the device."

Tiburana writes: "NASA recently held a conference called "The Physics and Biology of Making Mars Habitable". The current line of inquiry is to introduce microbes to recreate the greenhouse effect that is wreaking havoc on our environemnt to raise the temperature of the Martian surface to accomodate the types of life with which we are familiar. " The submittor also expressed some concerns about how humans handling of the Earth - and whether we'll repeat the same problems on other planets.

Dahamma writes "I saw on Voodoo Extreme that NASA has modeled a "Virtual International Space Station" in Unrealty, an architectural modeling package using the Unreal engine. Download is already a little slow, though, and I can't imagine a /. post will help that..."

Dahamma writes "I saw on Voodoo Extreme that NASA has modeled a "Virtual International Space Station" in Unrealty, an architectural modeling package using the Unreal engine. Download is already a little slow, though, and I can't imagine a /. post will help that..."

[Tex] writes "While the rest of the world swelters, i'll be nice and cool...this article from NASA describes a general cooling trend over the Eastern US due to global warming. Warmer waters in the Pacific have created increased cloud cover on this side of the states, resulting in lower temperatures. Jeff Goldblum could probably explain this better... :)"

DrZoom writes "The Astronomy Picture of the Day for Jan 9, 2001 is an image sent into space by the Cosmic Call project. This is yet another interesting picture from APOD." Try to figure it out without reading the solution.

DrZoom writes "The Astronomy Picture of the Day for Jan 9, 2001 is an image sent into space by the Cosmic Call project. This is yet another interesting picture from APOD." Try to figure it out without reading the solution.

Zenker asks: "At NASA we are offering Linux as an alternative to Windows for anyone who wants it. I am working on a contract that puts a new computer on everyone's desktop and we will provide support and services for them. I need to assemble a distribution that will have all the necessary applications without flooding them with numerous option. I don't want to support every word processor and every spreadsheet out there. A good security policy is also necessary. What distribution would you use as a base for supporting a few hundred Linux desktops? Which applications would be standard for your office suite? What would your security policy be?"

cobyrne writes: "There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight between 18:42 and 21:59 GMT (13:42 and 16:59 EST). Visibility of the eclipse will be best in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is the last total lunar eclipse until May 2003, so enjoy!"

cobyrne writes: "There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight between 18:42 and 21:59 GMT (13:42 and 16:59 EST). Visibility of the eclipse will be best in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is the last total lunar eclipse until May 2003, so enjoy!"

cobyrne writes: "There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight between 18:42 and 21:59 GMT (13:42 and 16:59 EST). Visibility of the eclipse will be best in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is the last total lunar eclipse until May 2003, so enjoy!"

cobyrne writes: "There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight between 18:42 and 21:59 GMT (13:42 and 16:59 EST). Visibility of the eclipse will be best in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is the last total lunar eclipse until May 2003, so enjoy!"

cobyrne writes: "There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight between 18:42 and 21:59 GMT (13:42 and 16:59 EST). Visibility of the eclipse will be best in Europe, Africa and Asia. It is the last total lunar eclipse until May 2003, so enjoy!"

mirreke writes "Tomorrow night january 9th, the first total lunar eclipse of this millennium will take place. It will be visible from Europe, Asia and Africa. In the eastern part of North and South America and in Australia, a partial eclipse will be visible. More information is available from the NASA. "

Kumba writes "Found this while perusing NASA's Web site. It's an audio clip produced from radio waves detected near Jupiter by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and converted to audible sound by some scientists at the University of Iowa. A clip that they had last week was described by the Los Angeles Times as sounding "like a troop of howler monkeys battling underwater." The new audio clip is....difficult to describe in my opinion. I guess it's best left to each listener to determine what it sounds like, but if you've ever wondered what it sounds like out there, this is it." I had a set of five CDs a while back that had collections of sounds made from one of the NASA missions - it was called Sounds of Space or the Universe. Pretty interesting set - but then, of course, like most of my possessions it burned in a house fire and I've been unable to find it since then.

Kumba writes "Found this while perusing NASA's Web site. It's an audio clip produced from radio waves detected near Jupiter by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and converted to audible sound by some scientists at the University of Iowa. A clip that they had last week was described by the Los Angeles Times as sounding "like a troop of howler monkeys battling underwater." The new audio clip is....difficult to describe in my opinion. I guess it's best left to each listener to determine what it sounds like, but if you've ever wondered what it sounds like out there, this is it." I had a set of five CDs a while back that had collections of sounds made from one of the NASA missions - it was called Sounds of Space or the Universe. Pretty interesting set - but then, of course, like most of my possessions it burned in a house fire and I've been unable to find it since then.

Timex writes "Doctors at the Medical College of Wisconsin are finding that near-infrared light from LEDs originally designed for commercial plant growth research in space are useful in healing hard-to-heal wounds. more information is available from their press section"

Conrad_Bombora writes: "NASA's Blackjack Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver, flying on the Argentine satellite SAC-C provides a new way to study Earth's gravity field and atmosphere. The Blackjack looks at how the radio signals from the constellation of GPS satellites are distorted or delayed along their way. While a typical GPS receiver can determine its position to about 22 yards, the BlackJack can pinpoint the position of its host satellite continuously an accuracy of about one inch, and can be used for a variety of Earth studies." The paragraph I find most interesting says "the BlackJacks are also equipped with small down-looking antennas to attempt to receive GPS signals that reflect off the oceans."

A non-mouse Cow Herd writes: "Here's an interesting NASA project that popped up on sci.space.sience a while back: This site allows volunteers to classify craters on mars, essentially a human distributed image processing program. They are even starting a moderation-like quality rating. So what do you think ? Would you devote your spare cycles to this ? Will the get quality work or just a lot of First Posts ?" Seems almost (but not quite) paradoxical to use an ultra-high-tech infrastructure to organize non-automated piecework, but until there's a sand mouse for crater-recognition, it seems like a really smart idea.

deglr6328 writes: "As a follow up to the /. story posted on Nov.30, NASA has successfully contacted its 35-year-old Pioneer 6 spacecraft. The probe downlink (at 16bps) was tracked by the 70 Meter Goldstone Deep Space Network dish, while transmitting with total of 8 watts RF power at distance of 83 million miles (133 million Kilometers). Amazingly cool if you ask me."

deglr6328 writes: "As a follow up to the /. story posted on Nov.30, NASA has successfully contacted its 35-year-old Pioneer 6 spacecraft. The probe downlink (at 16bps) was tracked by the 70 Meter Goldstone Deep Space Network dish, while transmitting with total of 8 watts RF power at distance of 83 million miles (133 million Kilometers). Amazingly cool if you ask me."