Wed Space News

Author
Aron Schatz
Posted
May 3, 2006
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1344
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Meters crashing into a lunar base really ruins your day.

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And while small meteoroids burn up in the Earth's atmosphere, the Moon has no such built-in shield. The Moon has an area equivalent to that of Africa, and the standard meteoroid model, based largely on Earth data, suggests between 300 and 400 impacts annually from meteoroids larger than 1 kilogram.


Saturn rotates faster than measured.

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Giampieri and colleagues examined data gathered over a 14-month period from Cassini’s fluxgate magnetometer. The data revealed a small periodic signal in Saturn’s magnetic field measuring 10 hours, 47 minutes. If the signal is indeed tied to the rotation of the planet’s solid core, as the Cassini team proposes, it is not clear how this can be reconciled with the earlier Voyager measurement.


US eyeing anti-sattelite lasers.

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The budget includes a plan to spend $5.7 million during 2007 to "demonstrate fully compensated laser propagation to low earth orbit satellites; [and] measure beam profile and intensity on target". These early tests would involve low-power lasers rather than high-energy ones that could serve as weapons. In a preliminary mark-up of the 2007 military budget, the strategic forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee did not approve the new funding for the anti-satellite programme. But this decision could be reversed when the full committee analyses the bill.

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