SPACE.com – NASA’s spaceshuttle Atlantis is closing in on the International Space Station and on trackto link up with the orbiting laboratory later today.
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Hylas, a flexible, broadband
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AFP – NASA is ready to cooperate with China in space exploration, the head of the US agency said on Tuesday, as Beijing aims to send a manned mission to the moon by around 2020.
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Watch replay of the Rosetta Earth swingby event from ESA’s European Space Operations Centre, Darmstadt, 13 November, 08:18-09:00 CET.
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Ariane launches might seem routine – but it’s a routine that’s been going on for 30 years. Each launch is a technological and masterpiece, requiring specialised teams, coordinators and team leaders.
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After the trajectory correction manoeuvre on 22 October, Rosetta has lined up on a near-perfect Earth approach path. The manoeuvre was so precise that mission controllers decided not to use the additional manoeuvre slot that was available yesterday.
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2009 November 17 
Will this dawn bring another nova?Such dilemmas might be pondered one day byfuture humansliving on a planet orbiting acataclysmic variablebinary star system.Cataclysmic variables involve gas falling from a large star onto anaccretion disk surrounding a massive but compactwhite dwarf star. Explosive cataclysmic events such as adwarf novacan occur when a clump of gas in the interior of theaccretion diskheats up past a certain temperature. At that point, the clump will fall more quickly onto thewhite dwarf and land with abright flash.Such dwarf novas will not destroy either star, and may occur irregularly on time scales from a few days to tens of years. Although a nova is much less energetic than a supernova, ifrecurrent novas are notviolent enough to expel more gas than is falling in,mass will accumulate onto the white dwarf star until it passes itsChandrasekhar limit.At that point, a foreground cave may provide little protection,as the entire white dwarf star will explode in atremendous supernova
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Images and data taken just before closest approach were downloaded this morning, and they show the lights of North America in the night and a glowing Southern Hemisphere.
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When Europe’s comet chaser Rosetta swings by Earth tomorrow for a critical gravity assist, tracking data will be collected to precisely measure the satellite’s change in orbital energy. The results could help unravel a cosmic mystery that has stumped scientists for two decades.
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SPACE.com – One of the best annual meteor showers will peak in the pre-dawn hours Tuesday, and for some skywatchers the show could be quite impressive.
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