Fresh from NASA Headquarters for you losers

i'm too lazy to do the links for you people. NO! who am i kidding. i just hate you IDIOTS!

Update:July 5th, 2000.

Greetings, cosmic contemplators,
  Just a few things I've posted this past week at
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/ :
 

Greetings, travelers,
Here's what's new at http://spacescience.nasa.gov/ :

More than 20,000 new images of the planet Mars taken
by Mars Global Surveyor are now available in a web-based
photo album. Hey, look -- if you squint, you can see
a toaster oven!

press release:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/mgsarchive.html
images: http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/

Galileo has successfully flown past Jupiter's moon
Ganymede, dipping to 809 kilometers above the surface
early Saturday, May 20. Galileo is getting ready for
joint science operations with Cassini in December,
asCassini flies by Jupiter en route to Saturn.

Galileo status:
http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/release/press000522.html
Cassini: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/

Meanwhile, detailed analysis of Jupiter's moon Io
reveals a colorful, active world full of surprises,
based on new results from Galileo and Hubble.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/gllmay182000.html

A new report from the National Research Council of the
National Academies maps out the priorities for investments
in astronomy research over the next decade. This
report will factor into funding decisions, both here
and at the National Science Foundation, for years to
come. This url will require some cutting and pasting:

http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/(ByDocID)/7EEE781658BEFDD1852568E 3006B5319?OpenDocument

Using our Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers
have made the first long-duration x-ray survey of the
Hubble Deep Field North. They detected x-rays from six
of the galaxies in the field, and were surprised by
the lack of x-rays from some of the most energetic galaxies
in the field.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/00_releases/press_051700hdfn.html

Europe's XMM x-ray observatory (with some U.S.
hardware on it)was launched in December. During the
current calibration campaign of its science instruments,
XMM has chanced on a sudden alteration in
a binary star system, one containing a likely black
hole, whose properties had not changed for thirty
years. It dimmed by a factor of 100, like me after a long day.

Story at
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=19360
XMM: http://sci.esa.int/home/xmm-newton/index.cfm

Cheers!

Update:May 17th, 2000.

Hello cosmic citizens,

Here's what's new lately in space science at
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/ :

Two more stories from the frontiers of cosmology, where major advances are being made in the study of everything:

Astrophysicists Detect Cosmic Shear, Evidence of Dark Matter- this study used ground-based telescopes to measure the gravitational effects of unseen dark matter.
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/press/00/pr0029.htm

Confirming the recent results from the BOOMERanG experiment, another balloon-borne experiment we support has obtained even higher resolution of the cosmic microwave background. The results provide strong evidence that the universe is flat, and that only about 5 percent of its mass and energy is comprised of ordinary matter - the stuff of which the Earth, the stars and humans are made. The remainder is either cold dark matter - the unseen mass that holds galaxies together - or dark energy, a mystifying pressure or repulsive force that seems to be accelerating the expansion of the universe. A really good story at
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2000/05/09_maxima.html

Galileo has taken its best images yet of Jupiter's cratered inner moons Thebe, Amalthea and Metis. News and pics at
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/April00/Simonelli.moons.deb.html
Galileo at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/

A simulated Mars soil and some potatoes have been joined in an experiment that will fly aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis later this month. The experiment, designed by Native American science students, will test how well the soil supports plant growth.
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-079.txt

The HESSI Mishap Board has released its final report, saying that our High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) spacecraft was damaged March 21 during pre-flight vibration tests because of a malfunction in the vibration test system
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-080.txt

Our 2003 Mars mission may include either a scientific orbiter mission or a large scientific rover which will land using an airbag cocoon. The two concepts were selected from dozens of options that had been under study. We will make a decision on the options, including whether or not to proceed to launch, in early July. More at
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/mars2003.html

Brown dwarfs are intriguing objects, intermediate between stars and planets. Astronomers have identified three brown dwarfs of a type never before observed, filling in what has been an elusive 'missing link' in the range of properties of known brown dwarfs.
http://www.ras.org.uk/press/pn00-09.htm

Chandra Images a Young Supernova Blast Wave - back in 1987 we were treated to the closest supernova in a long time, and astronomers have been studying the evolving aftermath of the star's death ever since. Now Chandra has started to see x-rays generated as the blast wave runs into a ring of matter that the star had ejected thousands of years ago. Go out with a bang at
http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/00_releases/press_051100sn1987a.html

Cheers!

Greetings from Washington D.C.,

Found some time to make a few updates to
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/ :
-------------------------------------------------
For the past decade astronomers have looked for vast
quantities of hydrogen that were cooked-up in the Big Bang but somehow
managed to disappear into the empty blackness of space.
Now, the Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered
this missing hydrogen; it accounts for nearly half of the
"normal" matter in the universe. The detection confirms
fundamental models of how much hydrogen was manufactured in
the first few minutes of the universe's birth
in the Big Bang. http://oposite.stsci.edu/pubinfo/pr/2000/18/index.html

NASA astronomers have collected the first-ever radar images of a
"main belt" asteroid, a metallic, dog bone-shaped rock
the size of New Jersey, an apparent leftover from an ancient,
violent cosmic collision. Many asteroids seem to have
this kind of double-lobed shape. http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/kleopatra.html

In other good asteroid-related news, NEAR has successfully
lowered its orbit to its primary science orbit, only 50
kilometers above asteroid Eros.
Darn good navigation. New, high-res images from the lower
orbit are being posted at http://near.jhuapl.edu/

Adding to the growing list of known planets around other stars,
a team of astronomers have announced the discovery of eight
new companions to solar-type stars. The masses of
these objects range from less than that of
planet Saturn to about 15 times that of Jupiter.
http://www.eso.org/outreach/press-rel/pr-2000/pr-13-00.html

More exo-planet news: astronomers using ISO data have measured
the size of a proto-planetary system, surrounding a newly-born star, seeing
a very young 'baby-star' surrounded by a disk
of the same diameter as Jupiter's orbit.
http://sci.esa.int/content/news/index.cfm?aid=1&cid=1&oid=18335

Fiery volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io are the main source of dust
streams that flow from the Jupiter system into the rest
of the solar system, according to new findings from our
Galileo spacecraft, analyzed by an
international team of scientists.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2000/jovianduststream.html

Yep, it's a dusty solar system out there.
Stardust has successfully ended
its first period of dust collection. Some early results were
reported last week, but of course the best will come after the sample comes
back to Earth in 2006. http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/

You can send a Genesis Gram, a 100 character (or less) thought
that will travel through space on the Genesis spacecraft,
scheduled for launch in January 2001. Seek fame, have fun,
engage the kids at http://genesisgram.jpl.nasa.gov/

Cheers!