17 May 2006

The Columbus orbital laboratory is a major European contribution to the International Space Station.

11 May 2006

Is this large ball of ice and dirt, that astronomers have labelled “fragment C”, likely to fall to Earth? Not at all, in fact, since 10 million km is more than 25 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

11 May 2006

As the tsunami on 26 December 2004 cruelly reminded us, earthquakes are often the cause of the most deadly natural disasters.

4 May 2006

The 5^th attempt got the green light to go…
Delayed again during the week, this time due to bad weather, the Delta 2 launcher finally lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base (California) last Friday night (28-29 April).

4 May 2006

Precise mineral mapping using the OMEGA* instrument on Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft has led researchers to propose a new geological timescale for the planet. The re-drafted eras have been given new names, derived from the minerals formed within them.

According to the new model, the 1^st era is called the Phyllosian, when aqueous alteration of surface or subsurface rock formed clay minerals, called phyllosilicates.

27 April 2006

In recent weeks, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Germany have been hard hit by floods—in some areas the worst in a century.

Torrential rain and melting snow are the cause of these devastating floods: by mid-April, 10 people had lost their lives and tens of thousands had to be evacuated in and around Prague, Budapest, Dresden and Belgrade, and entire villages had been flooded.

27 April 2006

Previous launch attempts late last week had to be scrubbed, the 1^st due to a communications hitch and then because the refuelling plane for a radar tracking aircraft was unavailable.

The Calipso satellite should soon be able to accomplish its mission to measure the impact of clouds and aerosols on Earth’s climate.

20 April 2006

20 April 2006

Are current theories regarding the birth and evolution of the Universe right?

20 April 2006