Following is a summary of current science news briefs.
Hundreds pay tribute to Neil Armstrong at Kennedy Space
Center
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – As family and friends
of Neil Armstrong gathered in Ohio on Friday for a private
memorial service, NASA paid tribute to the Apollo astronaut,
calling him a great American and a space hero. “He never
dwelled on his remarkable accomplishments or sought the
limelight,” Kennedy Space Center director and former astronaut
Robert Cabana said during a short tribute to Armstrong at the
Visitor Complex’s Apollo-Saturn 5 Center.
Spineless creatures under threat, from worms to bees: study
OSLO (Reuters) – The vital tasks carried out by tiny
“engineers” like earthworms that recycle waste and bees that
pollinate crops are under threat because one fifth of the
world’s spineless creatures may be at risk of extinction, a
study showed on Friday. The rising human population is putting
ever more pressure on the “spineless creatures that rule the
world” including slugs, spiders, jellyfish, lobsters, corals,
and bugs such as beetles and butterflies, it said.
Scientists test new marine robot hurricane-hunters
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Stuck bolt on space station stymies spacewalkers
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA on Thursday halted
attempts to replace a power distributor on the International
Space Station after spacewalking astronauts were repeatedly
stymied by a jammed bolt, officials said. NASA astronaut Sunita
Williams and Japan’s Akihiko Hoshide, both station flight
engineers, had planned to spend 6.5 hours outside the orbital
outpost to work on its power system and install electrical
cables for a new Russian module expected to arrive next year.
Rocket blasts off, puts NASA radiation belt probes in orbit
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“Little flash” as bionic eye brings amazed woman some sight
SYDNEY (Reuters) – A bionic eye has given an Australian
woman partial sight and researchers say it is an important step
towards eventually helping visually impaired people get around
independently. Dianne Ashworth, who has severe vision loss due
to the inherited condition retinitis pigmentosa, was fitted
with a prototype bionic eye in May at the Royal Victorian Eye
and Ear Hospital. It was switched on a month later.
Planet has two parent stars and a sibling, NASA telescope
finds
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – In a dazzling and
previously undetected display of orbital dynamics, two planets
beyond the solar system have been found circling a pair of
stars, scientists using NASA’s Kepler space telescope said on
Wednesday. Unlike single planets orbiting single stars, the
planets in the Kepler-47 system, located about 5,000 light
years away in the constellation Cygnus, are flying around a
“moving target,” San Diego State University astronomer Jerome
Orosz said in a paper published in this week’s Science
magazine.
Newly discovered dust-obscured galaxies may be missing link
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Scientists on Wednesday
unveiled a new species in the cosmic zoo, a super-heated,
dust-shrouded object called a “hot DOG,” which may represent a
missing link in galaxy evolution. A full-sky survey by NASA’s
wide-field infrared WISE telescope turned up about 1,000 hot,
dust-obscured galaxies, or hot DOGs, each of which pump out as
much light as 100 trillion sun-like stars.
Postcards from Mars show rover’s key science targets
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – NASA on Monday showed
off the first high-resolution, color portrait images taken by
the Mars rover Curiosity, detailing a mound of layered rock
where scientists plan to focus their search for the chemical
ingredients of life on the Red Planet. The stunning images
reveal distinct tiers near the base of the 3-mile- (5-km-)tall
mountain that rises from the floor of the vast, ancient impact
basin known as Gale Crater, where Curiosity landed on August 6
to begin its two-year mission.
Will.i.am song blasts to Mars and back, via Curiosity
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – NASA’s Curiosity rover is making
global headlines as it travels uncharted territory on Mars, and
it will venture into new realms back on Earth this week when it
premieres a new will.i.am song. The Black Eyed Peas rapper’s
tune “Reach For The Stars” will be broadcast live from the
surface of Mars, via Curiosity, at 1 p.m. PST (4 p.m. EDT/2000
GMT) on Tuesday to a news conference at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the organization said in a
statement on Monday.
