Cosmologist Stephen Hawking plans to retire next year. The 66-year-old author of the popular science bestseller A Brief History of Time became famous for his theories about gravity, black holes, the big bang, and the nature of time.

Hawking, the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University (a position once held by Isaac Newton), plans to step down at the end of the academic year, in accordance with a University policy of retirement at the end of the academic year in which officeholders turn 67, the Associated Press reports.

Another 66-year-old scientist at Cambridge, Peter Lawrence, argues against mandatory retirement ages for scientists in the May issue of the science journal Nature, saying that many well-known scientists have done excellent work after traditional retirement age. "Mandatory retirement policies condone and institutionalize discrimination," he writes.

But Hawking, who is paralyzed by motor neuron disease, intends to continue his exploration of time and space at Cambridge in a smaller role. He believes that space exploration may be the key to the survival of the human race.

Hawking told CNN earlier this month that if humans can survive the next 200 years and learn to live in space, then our future will be bright. "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," he said. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next 100 years, let alone next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load." Read more!

Oct. 28, 2008: Stop! Take your finger off that doorbell. Something spooky is happening behind your back. Turn around, tip back your mask, and behold the sunset.

It's a Halloween sky show.

On Oct. 31st, the crescent Moon will sneak up on Venus for a close encounter of startling beauty. The gathering is best seen just after sunset when the twilight is pumpkin-orange and Halloween doorbells are chiming in earnest. Venus hovers just above the southwestern horizon, the brightest light in the sky, while the exquisitely slender Moon approaches just a few degrees below: sky map.

Above: Venus and the crescent Moon photographed in July 2007 by Dan Bush of Albany, Missouri. The scene will be much the same on Halloween 2008. [Larger image]

Okay, stop staring. There's candy to be gathered.

One night later, you can give the sequel your undivided attention. On Nov. 1st, Venus and the Moon emerge from the twilight side-by-side, Venus on the right, the Moon on the left: sky map. Look carefully at the Moon. Can you see a ghostly image of the full Moon inside the bright horns of the crescent? That’s called "Earthshine" or sometimes "the da Vinci glow" because Leonardo da Vinci was the first person to explain it: Sunlight hits Earth and ricochets to the Moon, casting a sheen of light across the dark lunar terrain. A crescent Moon with Earthshine is one of the loveliest sights in the heavens.

The show continues on Nov. 2nd with Venus, the still-slender crescent Moon, and Jupiter arrayed in a broad line across the southwestern sky: sky map. This linear arrangement attracts attention almost as much as the luminosity of its points: Venus, the Moon and Jupiter are the brightest objects in the heavens, visible from light-polluted cities even before the twilight sky fades to black.

Trace your finger upward along the line—that is where the Moon is going. Nightfall on Nov. 3rd reveals the Moon transported to Jupiter: sky map. The two form a pair so tight and eye-catching, it may take your breath away.

As hard as it may be to believe, these nights of dark beauty are just a hint of things to come. The real show begins one month after Halloween when Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter converge on a tiny patch of sky no bigger than the end of your thumb held at arm's length: sky map. Dec. 1st is the best night to look, even better than Halloween.

Now that's scary. Read more!

Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has entered deep space after crossing the 150,000 km (one and a half lakh km) distance mark from the Earth. This happened after the successful completion of the spacecraft’s third orbit raising manoeuvre today (October 26, 2008) morning.

During this manoeuvre which was initiated at 07:08 IST, the spacecraft’s 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about nine and a half minutes. With this, Chandrayaan-1 entered a much higher elliptical orbit around the Earth. The apogee (farthest point to Earth) of this orbit lies at 164,600 km while the perigee (nearest point to Earth) is at 348 km. In this orbit, Chandrayaan-1 takes about 73 hours to go round the Earth once.

The antennas of the Indian Deep Space Network at Byalalu are playing a crucial role in tracking and communicating with Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in such a high orbit. The spacecraft performance is normal. More orbit raising manoeuvres are planned in the coming few days to take Chandrayaan-1 towards the Moon.

Read more!

by Sean Walker

---

Asteroid 2008 UZ drifted across the field during an evening imaging run. Click on the image to see an animation of the object's movement.

Paul Mortfield

Despite the growing number of professional surveys searching for near-Earth asteroids, amateurs still can bag a few new discoveries.

Amateur Paul Mortfield spends time with every imaging run he completes blinking each exposure and comparing the results to older survey images to see if something new appeared.

The effort has paid off. Mortfield has been credited with the discovery of two new asteroids, officially designated 2008 UY and 2008 UZ. Both objects are roughly 20th magnitude, and barely noticeable above the background signal in his exposures.

"Using a 16-inch telescope at f/8.9, I managed to capture these faint objects slowly drifting across my CCD images while taking 15-minute exposures," Mortfield explains. "They were only noticeable when I stretched each frame and blinked the results. I suppose if this stuff was easy, everyone would be doing it!"

Mortfield details a few simple steps that any imager can perform to search for asteroids, variable stars, and supernovae, as well as other scientifically useful information, hidden in the images we capture every clear night. Read about his experiences in Sky & Telescope's December issue, on newsstands now.

Read more!

Associated Press/AP Online By MARCIA DUNN

---

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - NASA's efforts to get the ailing Hubble Space Telescope working again have hit a snag, and engineers are trying to figure out their next step.

Officials had hoped to have the 18-year-old observatory back in business Friday, after it stopped sending pictures three weeks ago. But a pair of problems cropped up Thursday, and now recovery operations are on hold.

It's unclear how long the telescope will be prevented from transmitting its stunning photos of the cosmos.

The soonest it could be operating fully again is late next week, said Art Whipple, a Hubble manager. At worst, the observatory might remain inactive until astronauts arrive with a replacement part next year.

"We're still optimistic," he told reporters Friday.

Flight controllers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., began the lengthy process of restoring data transmission on Wednesday. Everything was going well, until late Thursday afternoon.

First, a low-voltage power supply problem prevented one of Hubble's cameras from being rebooted properly, and then computer trouble struck and all efforts ceased.

It's too soon to know whether the two problems are related, said Whipple.

"We're in the early stage of going through a mountain of data that has been downloaded over the last 24 hours," he said at a news conference.

Hubble's command and data-handling system for science instruments failed late last month and prevented the telescope from capturing and beaming down data used to create the pictures for which Hubble is known.

Because of the breakdown, NASA delayed its final Hubble repair mission by shuttle astronauts that was set for October. The mission won't happen until at least February, possibly later.

The latest setback is not expected to further delay the shuttle mission, Whipple said.

The recovery efforts involved switching to a backup channel for the command and data-handling system that had been dormant since the telescope was launched in 1990. That part, at least, seemed to go well, Whipple said.

So far, this isn't the longest that Hubble has been inactive since NASA's 1993 mission to correct its blurred vision. In 1999, science operations were halted about six weeks because of gyroscope failures that were remedied by astronauts whose flight quickly followed the breakdown.

---

On the Net:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission-pages/hubble/main/index.html

A service of YellowBrix, Inc. Read more!

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- India launched its first lunar mission on Wednesday, with hopes of achieving high-resolution images of the moon's topography and diving into the international space race.

For India the $80 million mission puts the country on the inside track of a fast-developing Asian space race.

The unmanned lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-1, or "moon craft" in ancient Sanskrit, came at 6:20 a.m. Wednesday (8:50 p.m. ET) from the Sriharikota space center in southern India.

The two-year mission seeks high-resolution imaging of the moon's surface, especially the permanently shadowed polar regions, according to the Indian Space Research Organization. It will also search for evidence of water or ice and attempt to identify the chemical breakdown of certain lunar rocks, the group said.

Despite the numerous missions to the moon over the past 50 years, "we really don't have a good map of the moon," said Miles O'Brien, CNN chief technology and environment correspondent. "The goal is to come up with a very intricate, three-dimensional map of the moon."

The Chandrayaan-1 is carrying payloads from the United States, the European Union and Bulgaria, and India plans to share the data from the mission with other programs, including NASA. Watch the launch of India's first lunar mission »

SRO said on its Web site that the mission would lay the groundwork for future lunar missions and "probe the physical characteristics of the lunar surface in greater depth than previous missions by other nations."

"It will also give us a deeper understanding about the planet Earth itself or its origins," a statement on the Web site said. "Earlier missions did not come out with a full understanding of the moon and that is the reason scientists are still interested. This will lay the foundation for bigger missions and also open up new possibilities of international networking and support for planetary programs."

Until now, India's space launches have been more practical, with weather warning satellites and communiations systems, The Associated Press cited former NASA associated administrator Scott Pace as saying.

To date, only the U.S. Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China have sent missions to the moon, according to AP.

Critics of the mission have questioned its $80 million price tag, saying the money should have been spent by the government to improve education and fight poverty.

But, "there are scientists that would argue that there are plenty of things we don't know about the moon ... and India might have the know-how" to find answers, said CNN's Sara Sidner in New Delhi.

The United States and the Soviet Union dominated the field of lunar exploration from the late 1950s. The United States is preparing for its own mission slated for next spring -- the first U.S. lunar mission in more than a decade, according to NASA.

Soviet spacecraft were the first to fly by, land on and orbit the moon. Luna 1, launched on January 2, 1959, and sped by the moon two days later.

Luna 2 was launched on an impact mission on September 12, 1959, striking the surface two days later. Luna 9 launched on January 31, 1966, becoming the first craft to successfully land on the moon and send back data, touching down on the surface on January 31, 1966, and transmitting until February 3, 1967, when its batteries ran out.

Luna 10 was launched March 31, 1966, entered lunar orbit on April 3, and operated for 56 days.

But the United States' Apollo missions were the first manned missions to reach the moon, culminating with six missions that set down on the surface. The first, Apollo 11, left earth on July 16, 1969, and landed astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin on the lunar surface on July 20 while command module pilot Michael Collins orbited above. The astronauts returned safely to earth on July 24.
advertisement

Most recently India's fellow Asian nations, China and Japan, put lunar orbiters in place. Japan launched the Kaguya orbiter in October 2007, followed by China's launch of the Chang'e mission a few weeks later. Video Watch what is shaping up to be a new space race »

"Each nation is doing its own thing to drive its research technology for the well-being of that nation," AP quoted Charles Vick, a space analyst for the Washington think tank GlobalSecurity.org, as saying. Read more!

Rob Cardinal was looking for an asteroid, but found a comet. / Photo by Leanne Yohemas

Watch a short video of the comet
Comet.wmv or Comet2.mov

Rob Cardinal was looking for an asteroid, but ended up finding a comet. It is the first time a comet has been discovered at U of C’s Rothney Astrophysical Observatory, which is located about 35 kilometres southwest of Calgary, and only the second Canadian discovery of a comet, using a Canadian telescope, in nearly a decade.

On Oct. 1, Cardinal thought he saw something move while observing a patch of sky near the North Celestial Pole while using the observatory's Baker-Nunn telescope. A subsequent computer analysis of the images taken, showed a moving object that although faint by visual standards, was actually exceptionally bright for what was a suspected asteroid at the time.

A few more pictures taken about a week later verified that a never-before-seen member of our solar system had been discovered, and it was confirmed by other observations by astronomers in the U.S. and Japan and the Minor Planet Center, based at Harvard University, that it was a new comet. As per protocol, it was named after Cardinal and is officially designated as C/2008 T2 Cardinal.

“I was so excited when I found out,” says the astronomer. “It’s satisfying to see your hard work pay off.”

Russ Taylor, the head of the physics and astronomy department, called the find a tribute to the team of scientists and the dark sky quality at the observatory.

“Alan Hildebrand, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Planetary Science, and his research team at the Rothney have put together the premier wide-field telescope for space imaging in Canada. The discovery of comet Cardinal is an exciting achievement,” he says.

There is not much known yet about the Cardinal comet. U of C scientists are trying to determine more information about its orbit, whether its passing by Earth is periodic or whether it will only come by the sun once, which would mean its orbit is parabolic.

“The vast majority of the known comets, and the comets now being discovered, are found near a region of the sky called the ecliptic–that's because their orbits are similar to the orbits of the planets,” says Phil Langill, the observatory’s director.

"Comet Cardinal is on a very unusual orbit compared to normal solar system objects–it’s almost 60 degrees out of alignment with all the others. It is currently near the north star. It was brilliant for Alan and Rob to search that part of the sky, because everyone else is looking where the likelihood of asteroid discovery is high."

Cardinal says the comet is visible right now only in the northern hemisphere until June and after that, it will be visible, and likely brighter, in the southern hemisphere.

Langill says that if you could get hold of cometary material, you would be holding a 4.5 billion year old piece of history, with clues about how things were when the Sun and the solar system came together. Comet Cardinal is made up of bits of debris and ice left over when the solar system was created.

Langill adds he credits the local community for remembering to keep their lights off at night. The observatory has been working with the MD of Foothills to educate folks about smart lighting choices, light abatement, and what the astronomers at the U of C’s observatory do.

“This discovery can, in part, be attributable to them,” he says. Read more!