The Wire - Enceladus redux

Home

News

Home

News

News from Space

Enceladus redux

| Print |

E-mail

Written by staff

Wednesday, 23 March 2005

>Enceladus redux

Last week we ran a new picture of Saturn's moon Enceladus just because we could, but little did we know that shortly thereafter NASA would announce the discovery of an atmosphere on the remote moon.

By studying the moon's magnetic field, scientists have been able to detect signs of atmoshpheric activity which were undetected by the earlier Voyager mission.

"These new results from Cassini may be the first evidence of gases originating either from the surface or possibly from the interior of Enceladus," said Dr. Michele Dougherty, principal investigator for the Cassini magnetometer, in a recent NASA release.

>black hole created in lab poses no threat

Scientists mucking around with the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in New York have produced some unusual results. While smashing beams of gold nuclei together, they observed an explosion that was larger than expected.

The BBC talked with one scientist who interprets the resulting fireball as being similar to a black hole, while space.com merely likens the event to a tiny Big Bang.

All of the scientists assure us that these events pose no threat, and we are sure they know what they are doing.

< Prev		Next >

dig, dug

After a rough start, the Phoenix Mars Lander is successfully analyzing dirt samples dug up from...

clumping

While the robot arm on the Phoenix Mars Lander has successfully delivered dirt to the lander, at...

scoops and dumps

On June 2, NASA’s Phoenix spacecraft lifted its first scoop of Martian soil as a test of...

greetings from the Martian arctic

On May 25, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander successfully touched down in the Martian arctic in...

now with a pulsating carbon surface

Hidden right in the familiar Big Dipper, astronomers have discovered a new type of white dwarf...

ATV in space enounters rough patch

No, not an All Terrain Vehicle—an Automated Transfer Vehicle, which was launched by the...

and in this corner; taken too literally

and in this corner

Iran has launched a rocket into space from its own space center...

bright comet

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has probed the bright core of Comet 17P/Holmes, which...

extrasolar system

Astronomers have discovered a fifth planet circling 55 Cancri, a star beyond our solar system,...

the goddess who flew to the moon

On Monday, Nov. 5, China’s Chang’e 1 satellite successfully entered lunar orbit, only...

walking; now with more black holes

walking

Space Shuttle astronauts recently completed installing a new solar power...

massive darkness

news from space

we’ll take two
The National Security Space Office has issued a...

the dark side of Iapetus

the dark side of Iapetus

“The side of Iapetus that faces forward in its...

burst; ion power

burst

A recently detected burst of radio waves has stumped scientists, who have...

hollow Mars

NASA’s Mars Odyssey spacecraft has discovered entrances to seven possible caves on the...

the Victoria era; the inconvenient polar ice

the Victoria era NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has descended into...

crashing in Kazakhstan

A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a Japanese communications satellite malfunctioned after...

aqua vitae

aqua vitae

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, while observing a young solar...

galactic dominion

As if detailed satellite maps of the Earth weren’t enough, or a virtual globe that you can...

Music
Seacoast CD bestsellers this week introducing The Buoy in Kittery Foreside; Funky Divas of Gospel and Rock My Soul Deerhunter; Hauschka; The Walkmen; Ocean a royal flush

Film
Student Bodies Quantum of Solace 976-EVIL

Boing Boing

NY Times: The Los Angeles of Ry Cooder and Mister Jalopy

Near The Burgess Shale

Homes with Tails: Homeowners providing their own fiber