Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Jan 30

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - January 30, 2004 * * *

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Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories
abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,
SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. (If the links don't work, just
manually type the URLs into your Web browser.) Clear skies!

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OPPORTUNITY READY TO ROLL, SPIRIT ON THE MEND

Although the long-feared "Martian gremlin" temporarily derailed Spirit's
science mission at Gusev Crater, NASA is back on track. Engineers continue to
mend Spirit, and normal operations may resume in just a couple of days.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Mars, in Meridiani Planum, things are going so
smoothly with Opportunity that it will egress from the lander in the early
morning on Saturday, January 31st, several days ahead of schedule. Better yet,
preliminary reports indicate that Opportunity's Miniature Thermal Emission
Spectrometer (Mini-TES) has registered the spectral signature of hematite, an
iron-bearing mineral that often forms in lakes and hot springs on Earth.
Understanding hematite's role in Meridiani Planum is what lured scientists
there in the first place....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1166_1.asp

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HUBBLE GETS A REPRIEVE

The battle over the future of the Hubble Space Telescope has taken a turn for
the better, at least from the perspective of the observatory's supporters. The
conflict began on January 16th, when NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe shocked
astronomers worldwide by announcing that there will be no more Space Shuttle
missions to maintain and upgrade the orbiting telescope. Five days later
Senator Barbara Mikulski, whose home state of Maryland hosts both the
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and the Space Telescope Science Institute,
sent a letter to O'Keefe asking him to reconsider his decision. In the week
thereafter, her request was bolstered by a huge outcry from professional
astronomers, backyard stargazers, and the public -- including many SKY &
TELESCOPE readers who wrote to express their concerns. Apparently bowing to all
this pressure, O'Keefe has now agreed to reconsider his decision to abandon
Hubble....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1165_1.asp

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OPPORTUNITY ROCKS, SPIRIT AWAKENS

Such are the vagaries of space exploration that triumph can turn to tragedy,
and back to triumph, in the span of just 48 hours. On January 23rd, the mood at
the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was grim as Spirit's condition went
critical. But by the early morning hours of January 25th, euphoric scientists
and engineers were uncorking champagne. Opportunity had survived its perilous
entry, descent, and landing, and Spirit appeared to be on the road to recovery.

"I came here prepared for a funeral," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate
administrator for space science, at a press conference shortly after
Opportunity's safe landing in Meridiani Planum. "In the last 48 hours we have
been on a roller coaster. We resurrected one rover and saw the birth of another
today...."

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1163_1.asp

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OPPORTUNITY LANDS, SPIRIT REVIVES

NASA got a double dose of good news from Mars on January 24th. The Opportunity
rover landed successfully on Meridiani Planum and began sending back pictures
of a dark, eerie landscape unlike any seen on Mars before. Meanwhile, engineers
have regained control over the malfunctioning Spirit lander and are patching
together workarounds for at least part of its problem.

Opportunity made a flawless landing despite the high altitude and very thin
atmosphere of its chosen site. Meridiani Planum was selected partly for its
richness in hematite, an iron-bearing mineral that on Earth forms usually (but
not always) in the presence of water. For a tense six minutes the lander
streaked through the atmosphere, deployed a parachute, fired retrorockets, and
hit the ground encased in a bundle of airbags. It bounced and rolled, came to
rest upside down, deflated the airbags, unfolded and righted itself, retracted
the airbags under its base platform, and began taking pictures....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1162_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* On Saturday night, the Moon shines high overhead. Notice that it forms a big,
nearly equilateral triangle with bright yellowish Saturn and bright yellowish
Capella.
* Full Moon on Friday, February 6th.
* Venus at magnitude -4.1 is the brilliant white "Evening Star" shining in the
west-southwest during twilight and early evening. Every week it's getting a
little higher and brighter.

For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:

http://SkyandTelescope.com/observing/ataglance/

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Copyright 2004 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a
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*-----------------------------------------------------*
| Stuart Goldman |
* Associate Editor *
| Sky & Telescope |
* 49 Bay State Rd. Sky & Telescope: The Essential *
| Cambridge, MA 02138 Magazine of Astronomy |
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