Sky & Telescope's News Bulletin - Sep 5

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* * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - September 5, 2003 * * *

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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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DOWNPOURS ON ANCIENT MARS

The red planet does not lack for water in its frozen state. Great swaths of the
Martian surface appear to be underlain by ice-impregnated dirt, and a fresh
look at data returned by NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey spacecraft concludes that the
planet may have stashed even greater amounts of ice than first thought.
According to investigator William V. Boynton (University of Arizona),
subsurface regions surrounding Mars's polar caps may contain at least 70
percent ice by volume -- the equivalent of buried glaciers.

But when it comes to the role that water has played throughout its history,
Mars is sending planetary scientists mixed signals....

The most persuasive pieces of evidence that early Mars was warm and wet, at
least briefly, are the elaborate drainage patterns seen scattered throughout
the planet's ancient highlands....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1040_1.asp

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RUSTING MARS WITHOUT WATER

Astronomers have long attributed Mars's global orange-brown color to oxidized
iron -- rust -- in the dust that coats its surface. The source of the rust was
always assumed to be water, whether from Percival Lowell's canals of the 19th
century or the torrential outflow channels seen by the Viking orbiters in 1976.

However, recent observations have put a damper on the notion that Mars was once
awash, at least for long....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1039_1.asp

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SIRTF SEES FIRST LIGHT

NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF), launched on August 25th, has
passed the first crucial test of its onboard science instruments. After
ejecting a dust cover and opening the telescope's aperture door, mission
controllers switched on the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) to make sure it had
survived liftoff in good working order. With the 85-centimeter-wide (33.5-inch)
reflector pointed toward Perseus, IRAC made a 100-second exposure at a
wavelength of 3.6 microns. Covering a 5-arcminute-wide square, the image
reveals an assortment of stars and galaxies and indicates that both SIRTF and
IRAC are behaving as expected....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1042_1.asp

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FINDING WATERWORLD

Astronomers continue working full steam toward the day when they can hunt for
Earth-size planets around other stars. The Terrestrial Planet Finder (set to
launch in 2010), the Space Interferometry Mission (planned for 2009), the
Kepler mission (2007), and the French National Space Agency's COROT (late 2005)
will each have the technology to detect Earth analogs around distant suns. But
not all Earth-size planets will be terrestrial, says Marc J. Kuchner (Princeton
University). Some may be waterworlds -- bodies composed largely of volatiles
such as ammonia, methane, and as the name implies, water....

http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/article_1041_1.asp

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HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY

* The Moon occults Mars after dark for parts of China and Siberia on the 9th.
* Mars is to the left of the Moon on the 8th and to the right of the Moon on
the 9th.
* Full Moon on September 10th.

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

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

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Copyright 2003 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided as a
free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY & TELESCOPE
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617-864-7360. More astronomy news is available on our Web site at
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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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