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Cracks or Cryovolcanoes? Surface Geology Creates Clouds on Titan
10/20/2005

Cracks or Cryovolcanoes? Surface Geology Creates Clouds on Titan

Kathy Svitil
Like the little engine that could, geologic activity on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan-maybe outgassing cracks and perhaps icy cryovolcanoes-is belching puffs of methane gas into the atmosphere of the moon, creating clouds.
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Kavli Nanoscience Institute Inaugural Symposium to be Held Monday on Caltech Campus
10/20/2005

Kavli Nanoscience Institute Inaugural Symposium to be Held Monday on Caltech Campus

Theodor W. Hänsch, who earlier this month won the Nobel Prize in Physics, will be among the speakers at the Kavli Nanoscience Institute Inaugural Symposium. The one-day event will be held in the California Institute of Technology's Beckman Institute Auditorium on Monday, October 24.
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NASA Grant Will Fund New Research on Mars with the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers
10/19/2005

NASA Grant Will Fund New Research on Mars with the Spirit and Opportunity Rovers

Robert Tindol
When it comes to longevity, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers on Mars are giving some real competition to the pink bunny from those battery advertisements. The two rovers in a couple of months will celebrate their second anniversary on the red planet, even though their original missions were only 90 days.
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Interdisciplinary Scientists Propose Paradigm Shift in Robotic Space Exploration
10/17/2005

Interdisciplinary Scientists Propose Paradigm Shift in Robotic Space Exploration

Robert Tindol
Just ask any geologist. If you're studying the history of a planet and the life forms that may have lived on it, the really good places to look are rugged terrains like canyons and other areas where water, igneous activity, wind, and seismic rumblings have left their respective marks. Flat is not so good.
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Decades-Old Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts Solved by International Team of Astronomers
10/05/2005

Decades-Old Mystery of Gamma-Ray Bursts Solved by International Team of Astronomers

Robert Tindol
Astronomers have solved the mystery of the elusive gamma-ray bursts with very short duration that go off once a day.
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Tenth Planet Has a Moon
09/30/2005

Tenth Planet Has a Moon

Kathy Svitil

The newly discovered 10th planet, 2003 UB313, is looking more and more like one of the solar system's major players. It has the heft of a real planet (latest estimates put it at about 20 percent larger than Pluto), a catchy code name (Xena, after the TV warrior princess), and a Guinness Book-ish record of its own (at about 97 astronomical units-or 9 billion miles from the sun-it is the solar system's farthest detected object). And, astronomers from the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues have now discovered, it has a moon.

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Survey of Early Universe Uncovers Mature Galaxy Eight Times More Massive Than Milky Way
09/27/2005

Survey of Early Universe Uncovers Mature Galaxy Eight Times More Massive Than Milky Way

A massive galaxy seen when the universe was only 800 million years old has been discovered by teams of astronomers using NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes.
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Most Distant Explosion in Universe Detected; Smashes Previous Record
09/12/2005

Most Distant Explosion in Universe Detected; Smashes Previous Record

Robert Tindol

Scientists using the NASA Swift satellite and several ground-based telescopes, including Palomar Observatory's robotic 60-inch telescope, have detected the most distant explosion yet, a gamma-ray burst from the edge of the visible universe.

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Work Continues on the Solar System's Three Recently Discovered Objects
09/08/2005

Work Continues on the Solar System's Three Recently Discovered Objects

Robert Tindol

When planetary scientists announced on July 29 that they had discovered a new planet larger than Pluto, the news overshadowed the two other objects the group had also found. But all three objects are odd additions to the solar system, and as such could revolutionize our understanding of how our part of the celestial neighborhood evolved.

Planetary Scientists Discover Tenth Planet
07/29/2005

Planetary Scientists Discover Tenth Planet

A planet larger than Pluto has been discovered in the outlying regions of the solar system with the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory, California Institute of Technology planetary scientist Mike Brown announced today.
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