Russian Soyuz rocket has arrived to the launch pad on Monday, Sept. 28, 2009, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Soyuz is scheduled to launch the crew of Expedition 21 and a spaceflight participant on Sept. 30, 2009.
Water molecules on Lunar surface
NASA scientists have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. Water molecules are greater than predicted , but still relatively small.
Hydroxyl, a molecule consisting of one oxygen atom and one hydrogen atom, also was found in the lunar soil.
NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper, or M3, instrument reported the observations. M3 was carried into space on Oct. 22, 2008, aboard the Indian Space Research Organization's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. Data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer, or VIMS, on NASA's Cassini spacecraft and the High-Resolution Infrared Imaging Spectrometer on NASA's EPOXI spacecraft contributed to confirmation of the finding. The spacecraft imaging spectrometers made it possible to map lunar water more effectively than ever before.
The M3 team found water molecules and hydroxyl at diverse areas of the sunlit region of the moon's surface, but the water signature appeared stronger at the moon's higher latitudes.
Whirlpool Galaxy ( M51)
A picture of Whirlpool Galaxy( M51).
Whirlpool Galaxy ( M51) is a well known spiral galaxy . It lies approximately 31 milllion light –years away in constellation canes venetici .
Details of our Milky Way
Enjoy the breath taking portrait of our Milky Way in detail.
The image spans the region of sky from the constellation of Sagittarius to Scorpius. The very bright and colourful feature towards the right of the image are the Rho Ophiuchi and Antares regions. Darker areas such as the Pipe and Snake nebulae also stand out.
The dusty lane of our Milky Way runs obliquely through the image, punctuated with bright, reddish nebulae including the Lagoon and the Trifid nebulae. A supermassive black hole is at the centre of our galaxy.
Fastest moving planet
A small planet known as CoRoT-7b which is 500 light years from Earth and is the fastest moving planet known . It is moving around its star every 20.4 hours and is confirmed as a rocky planet.
CoRoT-7b is a rare breed of exoplanets with masses just a few times that of Earth.
Is there a life in Universe ?
Glycine , an amino acid which is a fundamental building block of life has been found in a comet.
This is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet.
Glycine, has been identified in the samples returned from comet Wild 2 by NASA's Stardust mission.
Comets have long been thought to hold the secrets of our solar system's history and play an important role in delivering the building blocks of life to Earth.
The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the Universe may be common rather than rare.
Images released by Hubble telescope after repair
Hubble telescope has finally got repaired and NASA scientists have released the first images taken by the telescope after repair.
The image is of planetary nebula NGC 6302. I have defined planetary nebula in my earlier posts also. The image is simply awesome.
A planetary nebula is emission nebula consisting of a glowing shell gas and plasma formed by certain types of stars when they die
NGC 4945 galaxy
NGC 4945 is classified as Seyfert galaxy.It is much like our own Milky way.
NGC 4945 resides 13 million light years from Earth in the constellation of Centaurus, and can be seen in modest amateur telescopes. It appears cigar-shaped from our perspective but it is actually many times wider than it is thick, with bands of stars and glowing gas marching around its centre.
Winners: 200 Custom Postcards Printing Giveaway from UPrinting
Winners for 200 Custom Postcards Printing Giveaway
- Ashlee912 -
I use these cards as a part of reunion of my friends / my relatives. I store these cards up to Dec month and send these post cards as a surprise in the eve of New Year & for X-Mas greeting. In fact, If I send a SMS thru a mobile it will be remembered only for a while or a day. These cards will be a special and sweet memory. These days sending greeting cards or post cards has been decreased a lot by us. For almost 5yrs I didnt even post single greeting or post card to my friends or my family members or even my relatives. sending cards to some one, it would be really a thrilling experience . Just try it.
- Nitin-
dont use post or greeting card <- this is going to the most common response given the era we all are in. For UPrinting (and not for winning any contests :) ) my response is- I would use the postcards to send Diwali greetings to friends and family. It's different, long forgotten and rest assured will bring a smile to any recipient. To add on, and again for UPrinting benefit-capture unique photos, or Natgeo like sites to gain coverage. See bing.com as an example. Millions of users are visiting this new search engine not for comparing against google but the constant changing images and messages.
The winners will be contacted by sponsors very soon. Thank you everyone.
Chandrayaan-I moon mission over
Project Director of the Chandrayaan-1 mission said that the mission is over as we have lost contact with the spacecraft. However, he said that Chandrayaan-1 has done its 90-95% job.
At the moment moon mission has been suspended. The two year moon mission was launched on last October and was abandoned today after radio contact with the mooncraft was abruptly lost at 0130 hours.
It has provided large volume of data from sophisticated sensors such as terrain mapping camera, hyper-spectral imager and moon mineralogy mapper, meeting most of the scientific objectives of the mission and providing meaningful
data for study by physics students at many world's research universities.
Chandrayaan-1 had sent more than 70,000 images of the lunar surface which provide breathtaking views of lunar mountains and craters, especially craters in the permanently shadowed areas of the Moon's polar region
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