Space Updates and NEWS

Witness the awesome power of our biggest Carnival of Space. Weighing in at a massive 22 entries, it's docked at the New Frontiers blog. Check it out, and gasp in awe at the galaxy eating monster, a feasible magnetic catapult, the fantastic colour palette of the Hubble Space Telescope, and 19 other stories.

Click here to read the Carnival of Space #41

And if you're interested in looking back, here's an archive to all the past carnivals of space. If you've got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community - and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, let me know if you can be a host, and I'll schedule you into the calendar.

Finally, if you run a space-related blog, please post a link to the Carnival of Space. Help us get the word out.

If we needed any more proof that we as a race are damaging the worlds oceans, for the first time, our impact has been mapped by new study to be published in Science. It makes for uncomfortable viewing. Taking 17 known types of human impact on marine ecosystems, this new research suggests that only 4% of the oceans are relatively untouched, whilst 40% are strongly impacted by human activity. The most impacted marine ecosystems include the North Sea, the South and East China Seas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf, the Bering Sea, the East coast of North America and in much of the western Pacific.
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The US Navy is planning to shoot down a dead spy satellite that broke down shortly after it was launched in December 2006. Not only are there fears that the large satellite could survive re-entry through the Earth's atmosphere causing damage and perhaps fatalities, the satellite is also carrying the poisonous hydrazine propellant that could be a health risk if inhaled. Therefore plans are afoot to destroy the craft in orbit rather than letting it fall to Earth some time late February or early March.
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As the search for extrasolar planets continues, researchers are finding systems more and more like our own Solar System. And today researchers announced another significant find: a system with two planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn. It's almost starting to sound like home.
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The problem with supernovae is that you never know where they're going to happen. Your only clue is the bright flash in the sky, and then it's too late. But a team of European researchers think they were lucky enough to have spotted the precursor to supernova.
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Crawling and wriggling, flapping and yelping, life blooms all about us on planet Earth. We can't avoid it nor live without it. But, what's the scientific consideration of life? Here, Lewis Dartnell with his book Life in the Universe: A Beginner's Guide provides a simple, viable definition. And, as the title suggests, this forms the basis for searching for life elsewhere. Especially searching way out there just beyond the tip of our telescopes.
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Since asteroids have mass, they have gravity. And if you've got gravity, you can have moons. Several asteroids have been discovered in the outer Solar System with smaller asteroidlets circling them. But now the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico has turned up the closest example - a triple system just a mere 11 million km (7 million miles) from Earth.
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It’s been called a white elephant, an orbital turkey, a money pit, and an expensive erector set. Seemingly, even many people at NASA think building it was a mistake. The International Space Station has been plagued with repeated delays, cost overruns, and bad press. Additionally, the ISS has never really caught the fancy of the general public and most likely there’s a fair percentage of the world’s population who have absolutely no idea there’s a construction project the size of two football fields going on in orbit over their heads.

But I’m going to be honest. I’ll come right out and say it: I really like the ISS. In fact, I’m crazy about it, and have been ever since Unity docked with Zarya back in 1998. Yes, my heart belongs to the space station, and since its Valentine’s Day, I’m going to profess my feelings here and now with ten reasons why I love the International Space Station:
(In no particular order:)
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