VOICE ONE:
This is Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English programEXPLORATIONS. Today we tell about a new space telescope. We tellabout a new moon found near the planet Uranus. We tell about a NASAspacecraft that is on its way to Saturn. We also tell about newphotographs taken by the Mars Global Surveyor. And we tell aboutmusic written with the aid of sounds from space.
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VOICE ONE:
NASA has chosen the T-R-W company of Redondo Beach, California,to build the next space telescope. Plans call for the telescope tobe ready for launch in two-thousand-ten.
NASA officials say the newtelescope will be placed in orbit one-point-five-million kilometersin space. It will be in an area of space called the second LagrangePoint. This area of space is where the pull of gravity from the sunand the Earth are the same.
NASA says the new telescope will be much stronger and will beable to look much farther into deep space than the older HubbleSpace Telescope.
VOICE TWO:
A space telescope uses a special mirror to collect light fromdistant objects. The light the mirror captures produces the imagesof these objects. The new space telescope is stronger than theHubble because it can collect much more light than the Hubble can.The Hubble’s light-collecting mirror is about two-and-one-halfmeters in diameter.
The new space telescope’s mirror will be six meters in diameter.The new telescope will be able to see objects that give off muchless light and are much farther away.
NASA says the T-R-W company has agreed to design and build thenew telescope for about eight-hundred-twenty-five million dollars.The T-R-W company will be responsible for placing the scienceinstruments into the new space telescope. The company will also testthe new space telescope before the flight and once it reaches itsnew home in space.
VOICE ONE:
The Hubble Space Telescope was named for American scientist EdwinHubble. The new Space Telescope will be named the James Webb SpaceTelescope. Mister Webb was NASA’s second top administrator. He wasresponsible for leading NASA during the Apollo series ofexplorations that landed the first humans on the moon. He beganseveral science programs at NASA and was responsible for more thanseventy-five launches of spacecraft during his time as NASAadministrator.
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VOICE TWO:
A team of scientists has discovered a new moon in orbit aroundthe planet Uranus. They named the new moon S/2001 U1(s-two-thousand-one u-one). Uranus now has a total of twenty-oneknown moons.
The new moon and five similarmoons have very unusual orbits around the planet. Scientists thinkthese unusual moons are the result of a crash of larger objects thattook place when the planet was being formed.
Christophe Dumas is a scientist with NASA’s Jet PropulsionLaboratory in Pasadena, California. He was one of the scientists whodiscovered the new moon.
Mister Dumas says this kind of moon is very difficult to findbecause it is so far from the planet. He says it is easily hiddenamong stars that can be seen in the distance behind Uranus. He alsosaid the unusual orbit of the moon made it difficult to find.
Two scientists first observed the new moon. They are MatthewHolman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics inCambridge, Massachuttes and J-J Kavelaars of the DominionAstrophysical Observatory, in Victoria, British Colombia, Canada.They discovered the moon in images from the Cerro Tololo Observatoryin Chile.
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VOICE ONE:
The NASA spacecraft Cassini is traveling to the planet Saturn.Plans call for it to arrive there in July two-thousand-four. TheCassini is carrying an instrument called the Huygens [HOY-guns]Probe.
The Huygens Probe is designed to be lowered by parachute to thesurface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. This will take place inJanuary, two-thousand-five.
Recently, an electronic report wassent by Cassini to Earth about the condition of the Huygens Probe.The electronic report was the result of about five hours of tests.Shaun Standley is a scientist with the European Space Agency.
The Huygens Probe is a European Space Agency project. MisterStandley says the five hours of tests are done on the Huygens Probeabout evey six months. The tests include making every moving part ofthe probe do its job. The tests also include an inspection of thespace vehicle’s power, computers and radio communication devices.The recent tests showed the Huygens Probe is working perfectly.Scientists at the Huygens Probe Operations Center in Darmstadt,Germany studied the results of the tests.
VOICE TWO:
The Huygens Probe carries many different instruments. Oneinstrument will measure wind and wind direction as the parachutecarries the Huygens Probe toward the surface of Titan. Otherinstruments include special cameras that will send back photographsof the surface of Titan. The probe also has equipment that willstudy and report about the surface of Titan after it lands. It alsocarries instruments that will measure different gases in theatmosphere of the large moon.
The Cassini Spacecraft was launched in October,nineteen-ninety-seven. It still must travel through space foranother two years before it reaches Saturn.
The Cassini spacecraft and its Huygens Probe will provideinformation about an area of our solar system that we know littleabout. The information the two spacecraft gather will be shared withmore than two-hundred scientists around the world.
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VOICE ONE:
NASA’s Global Surveyor satellite is continuing to send homeextremely good photographs of the planet Mars. It has sent back morethan one-hundred-twelve-thousand images. The new images were takenbetween August of two-thousand-one and January of two-thousand-two.The images show several weather events including evidence of duststorms on Mars.
One of the images taken by the Global Surveyor is now consideredthe best image ever taken of the red planet. The photograph is of anarea called the Newton Basin.
The photograph shows two areas that were made by space objectshitting the surface of Mars. Another photograph shows frozen watervapor or frost on the wall of the hole made by the space object. Thephoto also shows sand on the surface of Mars.
VOICE TWO:
Scientists hope to use many of these photographs to find goodlanding areas for the Mars Exploration Rover. Plans call for theRover to be launched next year.
Global Surveyor was launched in November, nineteen-ninety-six andentered its Martian orbit almost one year later.
The Global Surveyor has now studied all of the Martian surfaceand atmosphere. It has returned more information about the redplanet than all other Mars missions combined.
If you have a computer and would like to see many of the GlobalSurveyor photographs, have your computer search for the two wordsNASA and MARS: N-A-S-A and M-A-R-S.
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VOICE ONE:
Don Gurnett is a scientist working at the University of Iowa. Formany years he has placed scientific instruments on many spacecraft.These include NASA’s Voyagers, Galileo, Cassini and more thantwenty-four other spacecraft. For more than forty years MisterGurnett has used instruments to record the sounds of space.
The sounds he records are created by electric energy in space.This energy can be heard as radio signals. Listen and you can hearsome of the sounds Mister Gurnett recorded.
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VOICE TWO:
Recently, musician Terry Riley wrote music using the sounds ofspace for the famous string instrument group, the Kronos Quartet.The new music is called “Sun Rings.” Part of the music is called”Earth Whistlers.” Another is called “Planet Elf Sindoori.” Themusic was performed for the first time last month at the Universityof Iowa’s Hancher Auditorium in Iowa City, Iowa. The Kronos Quartethas not said if they will record the unusual music.
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VOICE ONE:
This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced byCaty Weaver. I’m Mary Tillotson.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Join us again next week for EXPLORATIONS, aprogram in Special English on the Voice of America.