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VOICE ONE:
This is Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember withEXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the crashof the Genesis spacecraft after three years in space. And we tellabout the discovery of three new planets that orbit far-away stars.
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Last Wednesday, September eighth, a spacecraft named Genesisentered Earth’s atmosphere high above the western United States. Itwas traveling at speeds of more than eleven kilometers a second.
The spacecraft was supposed to deploy a parachute at almostthirty kilometers above the surface of the Earth. This specialparachute would help the spacecraft slow its great speed. Thenhelicopters were supposed to catch the parachute before thespacecraft hit the ground. However, the parachute failed to open.Scientists and NASA officials on the ground watched as the twohundred five kilogram spacecraft crashed into the desert surface. Itlanded at the Utah Test and Training Range.
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The two hundred sixty million dollar spacecraft hit the ground ata speed of more than three hundred kilometers an hour. It hit sohard that it buried itself half underground. The most importantimmediate concern was the safety of people who worked to recover thespacecraft. The explosive device that was supposed to deploy theparachute had to be made safe before anything could be moved.
As soon as possible, scientistsopened the spacecraft. They removed the scientific instrumentsinside and took them to a special research room. They cleaned theinstruments and examined them. Roger Wiens is a member of theGenesis science team. He said first examinations showed major damageinside the spacecraft. However, he said the science team is veryhopeful they can still save much of the material collected.
NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe said the design and strongconstruction of Genesis may still provide the scientific resultsthey hoped for.
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The Genesis project manager is Don Sweetnam of NASA’s JetPropulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California. He told reportersthat everything had worked extremely well with the Genesis projectuntil the very end. Mister Sweetnam said the Genesis project hadplans and special tools for this kind of a problem. He said thescientists will work to recover as much of the science project aspossible.
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The Genesis spacecraft had been in an orbit almost one and a halfmillion kilometers from Earth for the past three years. Its purposewas to collect extremely small pieces of material from the Sun. Someof the material weighs no more than a few grains of salt.
These small pieces of the sun are invisible ions that flow offthe Sun and make up what is called the solar wind. Ions are atomsthat do not have many of their electrons.
Scientists will inspect the solar material in special researchcenters designed to study very small pieces of matter. The researchwas to have taken several years. Scientists are hoping to find newinformation in this material about how the Sun and its family ofplanets came into being and developed.
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Scientists have long wanted to capture pieces of matter that comedirectly from the Sun. While the Sun is mostly made up of hydrogenand helium, scientists believe it also has small amounts of allother elements.
Scientists do not know exactly what the Sun is made of. They hopethe Genesis spacecraft will provide evidence of the amounts ofchemicals that make up the Sun. They hope this will show how thesechemicals resulted in the collection of planets and other bodies inthe solar system.
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To find this evidence, scientists had to launch a specialspacecraft that could collect matter without interference from otherplanets. NASA’s Genesis spacecraft was launched in August, twothousand one from Cape Canaveral, in Florida.
It was launched into an area of space between the Earth and theSun where the gravity of both is balanced. There, it collected solarwind material for more than two years from an area in space far fromthe interfering effects of any planet.
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When the Genesis spacecraft arrived at the correct orbit, itopened the special collectors. The collectors are made of smalldisks of pure silicon, gold, diamond and sapphire. They collectedthousands of millions of atoms from the Sun. In April of this year,the spacecraft began replacing the collectors safely inside theGenesis for the five month long trip back to Earth. The collectorswere stored in a round device called a sample return capsule.
In the early morning hours last Wednesday, the sample returncapsule separated from the main Genesis spacecraft. The capsulereturned to Earth, but crashed into the desert.
Scientists will take any solar matter that survived the crash toa special research center at NASA’s Space Center in Houston, Texas.There, scientists from around the world will protect and study thematerials for many years to come.
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Researchers have announced the discovery of three new planets insolar systems far from Earth. More than one hundred planets havebeen discovered in recent years in other solar systems. However,most of these have been huge planets made of gas like Jupiter in oursolar system. The new planets are smaller and much more like Earth.They are the closest planets in size to Earth that have ever beenfound.
Researchers say the newlydiscovered planets are between ten and twenty times the mass ofEarth. And, it is possible that they might be made of rock, or rockand ice, instead of gas.
One of the newly discovered planets joins three others that orbita star named Fifty-Five Cancri. Another planet orbits a star namedGliese Four Thirty-Six. A famous planet-hunting team discoveredthese two planets. They are Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institute ofWashington, Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California atBerkeley and Barbara McArthur of the University of Texas. Theyannounced their discoveries at a news conference at NASAHeadquarters in Washington, D.C.
The third planet was discovered by a team led by Michel Mayor ofthe Geneva Observatory in Sauverny, Switzerland. The European teamsays the planet they discovered orbits the star mu Arae. That staris about fifty light-years from Earth in the constellation or groupof stars called Ara. A light-year is the distance that light travelsin one year.
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The two planets discovered by the Americans are thirty-one andforty light-years away from Earth. One is near the constellation Leoand the other is near the constellation Cancer.
The American researchers say the new planets they have discoveredare about the size of the planet Neptune. This would make them aboutseventeen times the mass of Earth. This is still much smaller thanother planets that have been discovered. Some of these planets havebeen seventeen times the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in oursolar system.
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The research teams agree that it is unlikely that any of thesenew planets support life. The planets are too close to the starsthey orbit. Temperatures on the surface of the planets are thoughtto be extremely hot.
But the discovery of these planets is important because they aremuch smaller than others that have been found. The researchers sayit has become easier to find huge planets, but very difficult tofind a planet like Earth. An Earth-size planet is much moredifficult to see.
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Geoffrey Marcy is a member of the American research team. He saysthe search for new planets will continue. He says researchers arelearning to do a better job finding new and smaller planets. And hesays the goal of the American team now is to find planets that areno bigger than ten times the mass of Earth.
Mister Marcy says it is not yet possible to see Earth-sizedplanets far out in space. But it is possible to see their “bigbrothers.”
Mister Marcy says scientists are searching the stars for answersabout our own planet and solar system. They are searching forchemical and biological evidence. Mister Marcy says they are gettingcloser to answering the question of whether life exists on distantplanets.
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VOICE TWO:
This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced byMario Ritter. This is Steve Ember.
VOICE ONE:
And this is Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for anotherEXPLORATIONS program in VOA Special English.