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Here is the match, if you want to join before we start it up in a few hours: http://www.chess.com/groups/team_match.html?id=531 The other team is ready, so as soon as we are ready we can get it going asap. Thanks, George

U.S. pilot was ordered to shoot down UFO Buzz Up Send Email IM Share Digg Facebook Newsvine del.icio.us Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Yahoo! Bookmarks Print By Peter Griffiths Peter Griffiths – 2 hrs 21 mins ago LONDON (Reuters) – Two U.S. fighter planes were scrambled and ordered to shoot down an unidentified flying object (UFO) over the English countryside during the Cold War, according to secret files made public on Monday. One pilot said he was seconds away from firing 24 rockets at the object, which moved erratically and gave a radar reading like "a flying aircraft carrier." The pilot, Milton Torres, now 77 and living in Miami, said it spent periods motionless in the sky before reaching estimated speeds of more than 7,600 mph (12,000 kph). After the alert, a shadowy figure told Torres he must never talk about the incident and he duly kept silent for more than 30 years. His story was among dozens of UFO sightings in defence ministry files released at the National Archives in London. In a written account, Torres described how he scrambled his F-86 D Sabre jet in calm weather from the Royal Air Force base at Manston, Kent in May 1957. "I was only a lieutenant and very much aware of the gravity of the situation. I felt very much like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest," he said. "The order came to fire a salvo of rockets at the UFO. The authentication was valid and I selected 24 rockets. "I had a lock-on that had the proportions of a flying aircraft carrier," he added. "The larger the airplane, the easier the lock-on. This blip almost locked itself." At the last moment, the object disappeared from the radar screen and the high-speed chase was called off. He returned to base and was debriefed the next day by an unnamed man who "looked like a well-dressed IBM salesman." "He threatened me with a national security breach if I breathed a word about it to anyone," he said. The documents contain no official explanation for the incident, which came at a time of heightened tension between the West and the Soviet Union. Planes were on constant stand-by at British bases for a possible Soviet attack. The files blame other UFO sightings on weather balloons, clouds or normal aircraft. Torres said he had been waiting 50 years for an explanation. "I shall never forget it," he told the Times. "On that night I was ordered to open fire even before I had taken off. That had never happened before." UFO expert David Clarke said the sighting may have been part of a secret U.S. project to create phantom aircraft on radar screens to test Soviet air defences. "Perhaps what this pilot had seen was some kind of experiment in electronic warfare or maybe it was a UFO," he said. "Something very unusual happened." The files are online at: (Editing by Steve Addison)

From S&T:Rock From Space To Burn Up Over Africa A very tiny asteroid, not much more than 10 feet across, will enter Earth's atmosphere over Sudan in Africa tonight, October 6-7, 2008, near 2:46 Greenwich Mean Time. Most likely it will burn up before hitting the ground, but it could produce a spectacular fireball, or bolide, in the night sky equivalent to the explosion of about a kiloton of TNT. These are the assessments of astronomers Andrea Milani of NEODyS in Italy and Steve Chesley (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). They are concerned that eyewitnesses might misinterpret the event as some type of hostile military action. Says Milani, "The earlier the public worldwide is aware that this is a natural phenomenon, which involves no risk, the better." The first observatory to capture images of 2008 TC3 (as it's now designated) were Richard Kowalski and colleagues of Mount Lemmon Observatory in Arizona, about 12 hours ago. Confirming measurements were quickly secured by amateur astronomer James McGaha at Sabino Canyon Observatory near Tucson, and then by Gordon Garrad and others at Australia's Siding Spring Observatory and also Christopher Jacques and E. Pimentel using the Global Rent-a-Scope site in Moorook, near Melbourne. First to point out that the incoming object was heading right for a collision with Earth's atmosphere was Bill Gray of Project Pluto, in a post earlier today to the Minor Planet Mailing List. Canadian amateur Andrew Lowe has independently calculated the object's point of entry to be over Sudan. The object's entry might be visible as far north as southern Europe and the Middle East. Its location in the sky, however, is completely dependent on an observer's geographic location. As further details become known, be sure to look at the online version of this AstroAlert at SkyandTelescope.com/AstroAlert for possible updates. Roger W. Sinnott Senior Editor Sky & Telescope

NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from Martian clouds. There's a little video snippit and more details here:http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080929.html What an amazing time we live in.... LOL! What next?!

Hubble Space Telescope Suffers Serious Failure Tariq MalikSenior EditorSPACE.com1 hour, 4 minutes ago This story was updated at 2:40 p.m. EDT. A serious equipment failure aboard the Hubble Space Telescope is preventing it from relaying data and images to scientists on Earth and will likely delay a shuttle mission to overhaul the observatory next month, NASA officials said Monday. The glitch occurred Saturday in one of two sides of a device known as a Control Unit/Science Data Formatter that is responsible for sending data from Hubble to scientists on Earth, said Allard Beutel, a NASA spokesperson at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., where the shuttle Atlantis was being primed for an Oct. 14 launch. "The hardware failed, it's unrecoverable," Beutel told SPACE.com. "They did testing and it's no longer fixable from the ground." Side A of the data formatter failed Saturday, with flight controllers in the Hubble's control center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., working to switch to the backup Side B to regain data relay capabilities. The data formatter is vital to science operations for Hubble, which had been using the Side A unit since it launched in 1990. "It's used to store and transmit all the science data from all the instruments," Beutel said. The malfunction will delay NASA's plans to launch Atlantis and a seven-astronaut crew to Hubble next month to perform an intense overhaul aimed at extending the observatory's mission life through at least 2013. "Fixing the problem will result in delaying next month's Hubble servicing mission," NASA officials said in a statement. The mission has suffered a series of slight setbacks recently due to schedule slips from Hurricane Ike and payload delivery issues, and could be delayed to early February to allow more time to fix the new glitch. Options weighed While flight controllers work to switch to the backup formatter, NASA shuttle mission managers are weighing options for Atlantis and its STS-125 astronaut crew, which were gearing up to launch toward Hubble next month. "I think it's safe to say that we're not going to launch on Oct. 14 because they're going to need at least a couple of days to see if they can bring up the backup portion of this system before we can commit to launching," NASA spokesperson Mike Curie told SPACE.com from the agency's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Leaving Hubble reliant solely on its backup data formatter would also leave the observatory with no redundancy and one glitch away from a permanent failure, Curie said. A spare unit is available at the Goddard center, but it will require tests to ensure it is working properly after years in storage, he added. Mission managers must decide whether the replacement task can be added to the already packed scheduled for Atlantis' STS-125 crew, or which chores can be pulled from the flight to make room. "This morning, Hubble, shuttle and agency managers are meeting to discuss what options they might have, and there are a lot of options," Beutel said. "And they're also evaluating possible effects they might have on Atlantis' coming mission to the Hubble Space Telescope." Hubble's last overhaul Atlantis is slated to launch seven astronauts toward Hubble on Oct. 14 to pay one final service call on the space observatory. The mission is NASA's fifth and final planned service flight to Hubble. Commanded by veteran spaceflyer Scott Altman, Atlantis' STS-125 astronauts are preparing to perform five back-to-back spacewalks to add a new camera, replace aging batteries and gyroscopes and upgrade Hubble's guidance equipment during their 11-day mission. The spaceflyers also plan to add a docking port and make unprecedented repairs to instruments never designed to be fixed in space. Top NASA mission managers were expected to set a formal launch target on Oct. 3 after a traditional two-day flight readiness review, but that will likely change as they tackle the new Hubble malfunction. While mission managers discuss how Hubble's recent glitch may affect flight plans for Atlantis and its STS-125 crew, the shuttle's launch preparations have been going well, Beutel said. Atlantis is currently perched atop Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The new instruments and spare parts for Hubble were successfully delivered to the launch pad last week after a slight delay. Video - Hubble's Last Service Call Video - Hubble Service Mission 4 Countdown Hubble Images - When Galaxies Collide Original Story: Hubble Space Telescope Suffers Serious Failure SPACE.com offers rich and compelling content about space science, travel and exploration as well as astronomy, technology, business news and more. The site boasts a variety of popular features including our space image of the day and other space pictures,space videos, Top 10s, Trivia, podcasts and Amazing Images submitted by our users. Join our community, sign up for our free newsletters and register for our RSS Feeds today!

   New evidence backs up the existance of "dark matter" in our universe.  A second example of it's existance has been found and verified by the Hubble and Chandra space telescopes.  In a super collision between two galactic clusters some 57 billion light years distant the dark matter can be observed seperating from normal matter.    Since it's believed dark matter makes up 23% of the universe (as opposed to normal matter at only 4%) it's a relatively important thing to know all we can about it.      If you're interested you can read the story here:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7587090.stm

Did this conference interest any one  of our amateurs?     By Tom Callis, Peninsula Daily News PORT ANGELES — There are no miracles, says a group of about 50 astronomers and others interested in the structure of the universe who are wrapping up a four-day conference today.Something can't be created from nothing — that is another principle the group agreed upon, they said at a news conference Wednesday at the Red Lion Hotel.The "Crisis in Cosmology" conference was organized to develop criteria for creating alternatives to the "big bang" theory.The principles for forming a new view of the universe that were developed by the group are: Deductive, not inductive, reasoning should be used. There are no miracles. Forces of physics cannot become infinite or unlimited. Something can't be created from nothing.The "big bang" theory is that the universe has been constantly expanding since its creation in a massive explosion about 13.7 billion years ago.Astronomer Tom Van Flandern of Sequim, one of the organizers of the Port Angeles conference, and others attending, dispute that idea.Said physicist David Dilworth: "The "big bang" theory is a house of tissue paper that is about to collapse under its own weight,"'Good cosmology' The intent of the conference was to come to an agreement on six criteria for the creation of a "good cosmology," Van Flandern said.Cosmology studies the natural order of the universe.A "good cosmology" would explain how the universe works, but not necessarily explain its origin, Van Flandern said.It wouldn't use explanations that can't be proven, he said.He added that the "big bang" theory does rely on unproven ideas.So, alternatives to the Big Bang theory could include a universe that is everlasting and without an origin.Van Flandern said a level of agreement was reached on four of the six criteria during the conference that began Monday."Even if people have reservations about something, we all agreed that some of these ideas area a good basis for a new cosmology," Van Flandern said.

check this out it's about dark energy and dark matter http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/patricia_burchat_leads_a_search_for_dark_energy.html

If there are Martians, do you think they would be like the Martians in War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells? Any comment on War of the Worlds is welcome.

What improvments do we need? i.e. theme...vote chess etc etc...

One of my personal favorites is the Astronomy Picture of the Day http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html    

Primary Navigation Home U.S. Business World Entertainment Sports Tech Politics Elections Science Health Most Popular Secondary Navigation Science Video Weather News Space & Astronomy Animals & Pets Dinosaurs & Fossils Biotech Energy Environment Search: All News Yahoo! News Only News Photos Video/Audio Advanced New comet discovered by Swiss amateur astronomer: report Sat Aug 30, 4:14 PM ET GENEVA (AFP) - A Swiss amateur astronomer has discovered a new comet from an observatory in the western Jura district, the ATS news agency said Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT Only five similar comets -- fragile clusters of dust, ice and carbon-based molecules believed to be primitive material left over from the building of our star system -- have been been documented from Switzerland since the 17th century. The latest one to be discovered has a diameter of 20,000 kilometres (12,400 miles) and has been named Ory after Michel Ory who made the discovery, the report said. Discovered from the Vicques Observatory in Jura, Ory spotted the comet overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday and again from Wednesday to Thursday. The best sightings are expected in October and November, the report added. Some 200 comets are currently documented, the most famous of which is Halley's Comet. Ory has already discovered some 50 asteroids.

Saturn's Geyser-Spewing Moon a Puzzle By Dan Vergano , USA Today posted: 6 HOURS 52 MINUTES AGO comments: 1 filed under: Science News PrintShare Text SizeAAA (Aug. 18) -- Frozen iceball or hidden ocean? NASA's Cassini spacecraft has renewed debate among planetary scientists over Saturn's geyser-spewing mystery moon, Enceladus. Cassini mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have begun unveiling images of a 40,000-mile-per-hour pass over Enceladus last week. The fly-by, kicking off a two-year extension of the $3.3 billion spacecraft's mission to explore Saturn, passed about 29 miles above the moon's south pole. Mission to the Ringed Planet NASA The Cassini spacecraft took this photo of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, during a 40,000-mph swing on Aug. 11. The fly-by turned up some new clues about the fissures on Enceladus that are the source of its mysterious geysers. "If there is one set of images from this mission that illustrates how skilled we have become as planetary explorers, this is it," says Cassini imaging team leader Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo. Spinning the spacecraft around as it passed overhead to shoot the images, Cassini captured the "tiger stripe" fissures on the moon, from which geysers were first spotted in 2005. The discovery started a debate over whether "icequakes" grind the frozen crust of the moon enough to warm and release gases there or if a lake hides inside Enceladus, feeding the geysers. Liquid water is seen as a crucial ingredient for life, raising scientific interest in the fly-by. Just finding geysers on Enceladus surprised scientists, who thought that the 310-mile-wide moon was too small to harbor any significant earthquake activity or a core hot enough to power geysers. The fly-by images reveal more clues to the mystery of the tiger stripes: • They appear to be about 980 feet deep, with steep walls. • A snowy fallout of smooth ice lines their sides. FEED More From USA Today Musharraf resgining as Pakistani president McCain: Win war in Iraq first, then bring troops home McCain OK with aide's lobbying past Man whose lawsuit scuttled D.C. gun ban gets permit Israel to free long-serving Palestinian prisoners More Stories • Ice boulders the size of houses also surround them. Most intriguing, the imaging team reports signs that the geyser vents clearly have moved up and down the tiger stripes, perhaps icing themselves shut after each eruption. "The report that they see self-sealing and evidence for movement of the vents up and down along the fractures over time is great news," says Susan Kieffer of the University of Illinois in Urbana. Two years ago, Kieffer and colleagues unveiled the "Frigid Faithful" model of Enceladus, which predicted just such behavior for the vents, explaining that they came from fractures of solid ice releasing trapped gases and cold water vapor. "No liquid water is present, and there is little potential for life" in this model, Kieffer concluded in a recent issue of Science. However, planetary scientist Jeffrey Kargel of the University of Arizona in Tucson says venting of cold water vapor couldn't force boulders out of the vents onto the surface of Enceladus and that some of the features near the fractures resemble flows of frozen water ice. He leans more toward the "Cold Faithful" model of Enceladus, which has a reservoir of liquid water trapped inside the moon supplying the geysers. NASA plans a 16-mile-high pass over Enceladus in October, which should bring even higher-resolution photos of the tiger stripes. For any future landing on Enceladus, crevices about 980 feet deep "would present a significant hazard to most landers and rovers," says planetary scientist Francis Nimmo of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "But the smooth material apparently spewed out by the geyser makes a very attractive target for future spacecraft observations," he adds. "It will tell us a lot about what is going on beneath the surface of Enceladus, and hopefully whether or not there is liquid water down there." A big question is just how often Enceladus spews its geysers, which are thought responsible for Saturn's broad "E" ring. More images may allow scientists to time the frequency and explain the origins of the geysers. Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. All Rights Reserved. Add USA Today News Feed to My AOL 2008-08-18 09:31:56

Hi everybody. When I took astronomy in college my professor (or maybe he was a doctor) said that the fastest thing known in the universe is the speed that a red giant shrinks when it implodes. He said that the the red giant our sun will become will go from touching Mars all the way down to something the size of say something like Jupiter in a matter of seconds (3 or 4 seconds.) Does anyone know what the acutally speed is? Tried googling it and tried googling fastest thing known to man. Most websites still say light but then, isn't gravity proven now to have a speed and that speed is faster than light too? - Thanks, David/Wildcard

Here's hoping you have a clear night sky---.   Picked this up from Yahoo and thought it might be interesting to a few "amateurs".  Joe RaoSPACE.com Skywatching ColumnistSPACE.com Fri Aug 8, 7:01 AM ET Every August, just when many people go vacationing in the country where skies are dark, the best-known meteor shower makes its appearance. It is also the month of "The Tears of St. Lawrence," more commonly known as the Perseid Meteor Shower. Laurentius, a Christian deacon, is said to have been martyred by the Romans in 258 AD on an iron outdoor stove. It was in the midst of this torture that Laurentius cried out: "I am already roasted on one side and, if thou wouldst have me well cooked, it is time to turn me on the other." The saint's death was commemorated on his feast day, Aug. 10. King Phillip II of Spain built his monastery place, the "Escorial," on the plan of the holy gridiron. And the abundance of shooting stars seen annually between approximately Aug. 8 and 14 have come to be known as St. Lawrence's "fiery tears." Viewing prospects In 2008, the Perseids are expected to reach their maximum on Aug. 12. The exact time of maximum should be about 11h Universal Time (UT) Aug. 12, according to Margaret Campbell-Brown and Peter Brown in the 2008 Observer's Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. If so, the timing is very good for meteor watchers observing before dawn in North America, especially in the western states. And that morning, the waxing gibbous moon sets around 1:30 a.m. local daylight saving time, leaving a dark sky for the next 3 hours. Take full advantage of that moonless period. Next year, a last quarter moon will illuminate the after-midnight sky with its light and will hinder observation of the Perseids. Comet bits We know today that these meteors are actually the dross of the Swift-Tuttle comet. Discovered back in 1862, this comet takes approximately 130 years to circle the sun. And in much the same way that the Tempel-Tuttle comet leaves a trail of debris along its orbit to produce the Leonid meteors of November, Comet Swift-Tuttle produces a similar debris trail along its orbit to cause the Perseids. Indeed, every year during mid-August, when the Earth passes close to the orbit of Swift-Tuttle, the material left behind by the comet from its previous visits rams into our atmosphere at approximately 37 miles (60 kilometers) per second and creates bright streaks of light in our midsummer night skies. Comet Swift-Tuttle made its most recent appearance sixteen years ago, in December 1992. For several years before and after its 1992 return, the Perseids were a far more prolific shower, appearing to produce brief outbursts of as many as several hundred meteors per hour, many of which were dazzlingly bright and spectacular. The most likely reason was that the Perseids parent comet was itself passing through the inner solar system and that the streams of Perseid meteoroids in the comet's vicinity were larger and more thickly clumped together — hence the reason for the brighter meteors and much-higher-than-normal meteor rates. But with the comet now far back out in space, Perseid activity has pretty much returned to normal. Meteor clumps A very good shower will produce about one meteor per minute for a given observer under a dark country sky. Any light pollution or moonlight considerably reduces the count. The August Perseids are among the strongest of the readily observed annual meteor showers, and at maximum activity nominally yield 50 or 60 meteors per hour. However, observers with a wide-open view of exceptionally dark skies often record even larger numbers on the order of 90 or even 100 per hour. But while 60 meteors per hour correspond to one meteor sighting every minute, keep in mind that this is only a statistical average. In reality, what usually is seen is what some have called, "the clumping effect." Sometimes you'll see two or even three Perseids streak across the sky in quick succession, all within less than minute. This is usually followed by a lull of several minutes or more, before the sky suddenly bears fruit once again. When and where to loo Typically during an overnight watch, the Perseids are capable of producing a number of bright, flaring and fragmenting meteors, which leave fine trains in their wake. On the night of shower maximum, the Perseid radiant is not far from the famous "Double Star Cluster" of Perseus. Low in the northeast during the early evening, it rises higher in the sky until morning twilight ends observing. Shower members appearing close to the radiant have foreshortened tracks; those appearing farther away are often brighter, have longer tracks, and move faster across the sky. About five to 10 of the meteors seen in any given hour will not fit this geometric pattern, and may be classified as sporadic or as members of some other (minor) shower. Watching for the Perseids consists of lying back, gazing up into the stars and waiting. Perseid activity increases sharply in the hours after midnight, so plan your observing times accordingly. We are then looking more nearly face-on into the direction of the Earth's motion as it orbits the Sun, and the radiant is also higher up. Making a meteor count is as simple as lying in a lawn chair or on the ground and marking on a clipboard whenever a "shooting star" is seen. Counts should be made on several nights before and after the predicted maximum, so the behavior of the shower away from its peak can be determined. Usually, good numbers of meteors should be seen on the preceding and following nights as well. The shower is generally at one-quarter strength one or two nights before and after maximum. A few Perseids can be seen as much as two weeks before and a week after the peak. The extreme limits, in fact, are said to extend from July 17 to Aug. 24, though an occasional one might be seen almost anytime during the month of August. Top 10 Perseid Meteor Shower Facts Gallery: 2006 Perseid Meteor Shower Gallery: 2005 Perseid Meteor Shower Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York

What's your area of astronomy on which you know the most about, mines the solar system. What's your area of astronomy on which you find the most fascinating, mines black holes. What's your area of astronomy on which you need know the least about, mines stars and star constallations.

OK, the Astronomy tournament appeared this morning and I was looking at the people playing in it. My rating suggests to me that it might be unfair for me to play in this. What do you all think? Should I "do the decent thing" and withdraw to give others a chance or should I just play on and grab the undeserved glory?

Sky Watcher Spies Gassy 'Cosmic Ghost' Reuters posted: 3 HOURS 49 MINUTES AGO comments: 80 PrintShare filed under: Science News Text SizeAAA CHICAGO (Aug. 5) - A Dutch primary school teacher and amateur astronomer has discovered what some are calling a "cosmic ghost," a strange, gaseous object with a hole in the middle that may represent a new class of astronomical object. The teacher, Hanny van Arkel, discovered the object while volunteering in the Galaxy Zoo project, which enlists the help of members of the public to classify galaxies online. A Mystery in Space Reuters The green object above was first spotted by Hanny van Arkel, a Dutch teacher and amateur astronomer. What is it? Scientists aren't sure, but it consists of gas and contains no stars. "What we saw was really a mystery," said Kevin Schawinski, an astrophysicist at Yale University. Some have called it a "cosmic ghost." X | Close More on This Story: The Galaxy Zoo Project "At first, we had no idea what it was. It could have been in our solar system, or at the edge of the universe," Yale University astrophysicist Kevin Schawinski, a member and co-founder of the Galaxy Zoo team, said in a statement. The find, nicknamed "Hanny's Voorwerp" (Dutch for object), soon had scientists training their telescopes on the object. "What we saw was really a mystery," Schawinski said. "The Voorwerp didn't contain any stars." Made entirely of very hot gas, the eerie green object is illuminated by remnant light from the nearby galaxy IC 2497. "We think that in the recent past the galaxy IC 2497 hosted an enormously bright quasar," Schawinski said. He said light from the past still illuminates the ghostly object, even though the quasar shut down some 100,000 years ago and the galaxy's black hole went quiet. "It's this light echo that has been frozen in time for us to observe," said Chris Lintott, a co-organizer of Galaxy Zoo at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. Researchers will soon use the Hubble Space Telescope to get a closer look. "It's amazing to think that this object has been sitting in the archives for decades and that amateur volunteers can help by spotting things like this online," van Arkel said in a statement. Van Arkel is one of more than 150,000 amateur astronomers who have assisted in classifying more than 1 million galaxies over the past year as part of the Galaxy Zoo project. The next stage of Galaxy Zoo will ask volunteers to search for more unusual astronomical objects. Galaxy Zoo can be found at www.galaxyzoo.org . (Editing by Jackie Frank) Copyright 2008, Reuters 2008-08-05 15:51:18  

Viewer's Guide: Aug. 1 Solar Eclipse AP Photo: The sun appears as a diamond ring as the moon passes over during the solar...  Slideshow: Eclipse Joe RaoSPACE.com Skywatching ColumnistSPACE.com Fri Jul 25, 12:45 AM ET Friday, August 1 is a red-letter day for eclipse enthusiasts. On that date, the sun will be partially eclipsed over an immense area that includes western and central Asia, parts of northern and central Europe, all of Greenland and even a small slice of northeastern North America. A total solar eclipse — the first in nearly two and a half years — will be visible along a narrow track that will start over the Northwest Passage of Canada, gives a glancing blow to northern Greenland, then shifts southeast through Siberia and western Mongolia and before ending near the famed Silk Route of China.   The path of totality for this upcoming eclipse is never more than 157 miles (252 km) wide.   Where it's visible   The total eclipse begins at sunrise over Northern Canada's Queen Maud Gulf, where the moon's umbra will first touch down on the Earth, resulting in Canada's hosting its first total solar eclipse since February 26, 1979.   As the sun comes into view over the north-northeast horizon its disk will become completely blocked by the moon. This is in the area of the famous Northwest Passage, a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Arctic archipelago of Canada. The various islands of the archipelago are separated from one another and the Canadian mainland by a series of Arctic waterways collectively known as the Northwestern Passages. Politically, this region belongs to Nunavut, the largest and newest of the territories of Canada; it was separated officially from the vast Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999.   Although the umbral shadow narrowly misses the towns of Cambridge Bay on Victoria Island, and Resolute on Cornwallis Island, its northern edge just clips the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world: Canada's remote outpost of Alert, which lies just 508 miles (817 km) from the North Pole and has a population of just 5. Here, totality will last 43 seconds.   Crossing the open Arctic, the southern half of the totality path slides across the many fjords of northermost Greenland, coming to within 450 miles (720 km) of the North Pole at 9:38 UT over the Arctic Ocean before turning southeast. Totality sweeps over the Norwegian island group of Svalbard, while the northern edge of the umbra's path just grazes Russia's Franz Josef Land island group, then cuts across the crescent-shaped island of Novaya Zemlya on its way to central Asia. The umbra first touches the Russian coast on the Yamal Peninsula. Not far inland, greatest eclipse, producing 2 minutes 27 seconds of totality, is attained near the town of Nadym (pop. ~46,000), just inland from the boot-shaped Gulf of Obskaja.   Spending part of your summer in Siberia may sound a bit more appealing upon hearing that the central path passes almost directly over the city of Novosibirsk, Russia's third most populous city (pop. ~1.4 million) where totality begins at 10:44 UT and will last 2 minutes 18 seconds. The center of the path will then follow the Mongolia-China border for several hundred kilometers, with Olgij, Mongolia getting 1 min 36s of totality. Totality finally whisks into north-central China, crossing the west end of the Great Wall before leaving the Earth at a point northeast of the major city of Xi'an (pop. 3.9 million).   The northern half of Maine as well as the Canadian Maritime Provinces will experience a partial eclipse at sunrise.   Eclipse expedition   A most unusual attempt to rendezvous with the moon's shadow will be made by an Airbus A330-200 twin-engine long-range aircraft. Following a flight plan optimized specifically for the purpose of viewing this eclipse, all of the many unusual requirements of this flight have been evaluated and satisfied with arrangements by the air charter company Deutsche Polarflug (AirEvents) which has previously operated successful over-flights of the North Pole with this same aircraft.   Glenn Schneider, from the University of Arizona's Steward Observatory and a veteran of 26 total eclipses, has worked out the detailed formulation of the flight plan. He is targeting a point from the high polar north, at approximately +83-degrees latitude and about 440 nautical miles from the North Pole at an altitude of 37,000 feet above the Arctic Ocean.   This will be a unique event in the annals of solar eclipse-chasing since there are no records of any total solar eclipse observations as far north as this. While total solar eclipses in the polar regions are not rare, accessibility is very difficult. Until this juncture in time (and technology) very high-latitude (north or south) total solar eclipses have been elusive. The total solar eclipse of 23 November 2003 was the first in history to have been observed from the Antarctic.   Once again it needs repeating: to look at the sun without proper eye protection is dangerous. Even if you are in the path of the total eclipse you will need to protect your eyes during the partial phases. The Science Behind the Eclipse Galleries: Solar Eclipse in 2005 and 2006 Local Viewing Circumstances   Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for The New York Times and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Original Story: Viewer's Guide: Aug. 1 Solar Eclipse   Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!

Phoenix lander confirms ice in Martian soil AP Photo: This image provided by NASA shows the full-circle panoramic view of the Phoenix Mars Lander... Slideshow: Phoenix Mars Lander By ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer 4 minutes ago LOS ANGELES - The Phoenix spacecraft has tasted Martian water for the first time, scientists reported Thursday. By melting icy soil in one of its lab instruments, the robot confirmed the presence of frozen water lurking below the Martian permafrost. Until now, evidence of ice in Mars' north pole region has been largely circumstantial. In 2002, the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft spied what looked like a reservoir of buried ice. After Phoenix arrived, it found what looked like ice in a hard patch underneath its landing site and changes in a trench indicated some ice had turned to gas when exposed to the sun. Scientists popped open champagne when they received confirmation Wednesday that the soil contained ice. "We've now finally touched it and tasted it," William Boynton of the University of Arizona said during a news conference in Tucson on Thursday. "From my standpoint, it tastes very fine." Phoenix landed on Mars on May 25 on a three-month hunt to determine if it could support life. It is conducting experiments to learn whether the ice ever melted in the red planet's history that could have led to a more hospitable environment. It is also searching for the elusive organic-based compounds essential for simple life forms to emerge. The ice confirmation earlier this week was accidental. After two failed attempts to deliver ice-rich soil to one of Phoenix's eight lab ovens, researchers decided to collect pure soil instead. Surprisingly, the sample was mixed with a little bit of ice, said Boynton, who heads the oven instrument. Researchers were able to prove the soil had ice in it because it melted in the oven at 32 degrees — the melting point of ice — and released water molecules. Plans called for baking the soil at even higher temperatures next week to sniff for carbon-based compounds. The latest scientific finding is the first piece of good news for a mission that has been dogged by difficulties in recent weeks. An electrical short on one of Phoenix's test ovens threatened the instrument, but scientists said the problem has not recurred. The lander, which spent the past several weeks drilling into the hard ice, also had trouble delivering ice shavings into an oven until the success this week. NASA said Phoenix has achieved minimum success thus far. The space agency on Thursday announced that it would extend the mission for an extra five weeks until the end of September, adding $2 million more to the $420 million price tag, said Michael Meyer, Mars chief scientist at NASA headquarters. Unlike the twin rovers roaming near the Martian equator, Phoenix's lifetime cannot be extended much more because it likely won't have enough power to survive the Martian winter The science team also released a color panorama of Phoenix's landing site using more than 400 images taken by Phoenix. The view "was painstakingly stitched together," said Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University, who headed the effort. The portrait revealed a Martian surface that was coated with dust and dotted with rocks. ___ On the Net: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu (This version CORRECTS mission extension to five weeks.)