concentration of news
Avi Blizovsky
A weekend packed with scientific news like it hasn't been in a long time:
And this is the latest news:
Stardust
The Stardust spacecraft is on its way to rendezvous with Comet Wild 2. On Friday at 21:40 it will approach 260 kilometers and try to collect dust samples from the comet's tail. A few minutes of tension are expected before the transmission from the spacecraft resumes when it points the antenna towards Earth again.
Spirit will land on Sunday morning in Mars
On Sunday at 06:35 am (Israel time), a space vehicle of the American space agency (NASA) - "Spirit" - will land on Mars. Spirit is one of a pair of space vehicles sent by NASA to Mars (the second vehicle - "Opportunity" - is expected to land on January 25).
After the failure of the attempts to receive signals from the British spaceship Beagle-2, the tension in NASA is rising.
Amos 2
Amos 2 continues the chain of successes. After the successful launch on 27/12/2003 from Kazakhstan, the satellite is slowly making its way to its fixed point - 4 degrees west above the equator. The first ignition of the satellite's engine that took place on Monday, it rose from an elliptical orbit with one end at an altitude of 36 kilometers and its lower end at an altitude of 4,400 kilometers to an orbit where the upper altitude was maintained but its lower end was at an altitude of 22 kilometers. On Wednesday, the satellite's engine was turned on again and it is now in an elliptical orbit between the altitudes of 34 kilometers and 36 kilometers.
Maariv Online surfers chose the Columbia crash for the 2003 event
Maariv online
Thousands of "Maariv Online" surfers participated in the selection of this year's news event. At the end of a close battle against the capture of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, the crash of the space shuttle "Columbia" was chosen as the news event of 2003.
"We cried as one man"
42.17% of surfers who participated in the survey chose the Columbia crash for this year's event. "The story of the late Ilan Ramon will remain in our memory for many, many years after the other titles have been forgotten and disappeared from consciousness," explained the surfer Gabriel his choice. "Ilan Ramon created a sense of pride and unity in the people that very few events and people in the future will do." Surfer Tal wrote: "This is the most important story of the year that knocked us down."
For news in Maariv
The late Ilan Ramon, Person of the Year of the Eter Hidan
Saturn is approaching
Saturn rises these days at solstice and will reach its maximum height in the southern sky (in the winter the sun is on the southern side of the equator and therefore also the opposite Saturn) and will set when the sun rises. Astronomers call this "contrast".
The planet also known as Lord of the Rings is now at its closest point in the last 30 years - a distance of 1.2 billion kilometers.
Meteor shower this weekend
The meteor shower -- the Quadrantids -- has lit up the early January sky since at least 1825. Now astronomer Peter Janiskens of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, may have found the source of the shooting stars. The Quadrantids may be remnants of a celestial object, called 2003 1EH, Jenniskens says. Previously, it was thought that 1EH, discovered in March, is an asteroid, moving in an orbit close to Earth.
