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--James Granahan
**The Cyberspace Museum of Natural History and
Exploration Technology**
***SCIENCESCAN UPDATE***
Welcome to the Cyberspace Museum's Sciencescan Updates.
The purpose of these updates is to provide you with
information on the current happenings in the fields of the
natural sciences and exploration technology as well as current
activities at museums. Also come visit the Cyberspace
Museum at http://www.lava.net/~granahan to explore a web
site about natural history and exploration technology. This
newsletterUs URL is
http://www.lava.net.~granahan/news.html If you repost any
of this newsletter you need to document this URL as your
information source.
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Sciencescan Update, Volume 2, Number 3, (for the week of
February 9-15, 1997)
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THE SECOND SHUTTLE SERVICE MISSION TO
HUBBLE IS UNDER WAY
STS-82 conducted a night time launch and is now in
rendevouz with the Hubble Space Telescope. Internet users
will be able to watch the second Hubble Servicing Mission
from their desktops without downloading any extra software.
A joint test program by NASA and Technology Interface Inc.
will carry NASA Television video from launch to landing,
including four spacewalks and mission news briefings. To
get to one of the servers, go to the NASA Shuttle Web and
click on the link for streaming video.The Exploratium, a
science museum in San Francisco, and the Space Telescope
Science Institute are webcasting programs on the telescope
and the servicing mission. The webcasts are at 2 p.m. and 4
p.m. each day, Feb. 11-21.
Go to http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ to learn more about the Hubble
servicing mission.
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EXPLORE THE MIR SPACE STATION ON-LINE
Come and see what the Russian manned space program has
been doing in orbit online at the Mir web site. The Mir Space
Station floats above us (390 Km, at an inclination of 51.6
degrees) having completed to date over 62,250 trips around
the Earth. In its ten years in orbit, cosmonauts and astronauts
from dozens of nations have lived on the station and
performed experiments of historical significance.Mir is the
culmination of the Russian space program's efforts to
maintain long-duration human presence in space. The
permanently-manned space station regularly hosts 2 to 3
cosmonauts (on occasion up to 6, for shorter periods of up to
a month). At present, Mir is a complex of different modules
that have been through many mutations; modules get added
and moved around, like a giant tinker toy in the sky.
Go to http://www.maximov.com/Mir/mir.html to learn more
about this space station.
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GET THE LATEST FACTS ON COMET HALE BOPP
FROM JPL
Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a Comet Hale Bopp home page
which contains current data archives and ephemeris for the
comet. The following is an excerpt for Feb. 12, 1997:
Earth Closest Approach: March 22, 1997 (1.315 AU)
Sun Closest Approach: April 1, 1997 03:14 UT (0.914 AU)
Current Distance From Earth: 1.788 AU (166.2 Million
Miles)
Current Distance From Sun: 1.240 AU (115.3 Million Miles)
On July 23, 1995, an unusually bright comet outside of
Jupiter's orbit (7.15 AU!) was discovered independently by
Alan Hale, New Mexico and Thomas Bopp, Arizona. The
new comet, designated C/1995 O1, is the farthest comet ever
discovered by amateurs and appeared 1000 times brighter
than Comet Halley did at the same distance. Normally,
comets are inert when they are beyond the orbit of Jupiter, so
it has been speculated that Comet Hale-Bopp is either a rather
large comet or experienced a bright outburst (or both). The
comet is still getting brighter as it approaches the Sun.
Anticipation is now high that in the spring of 1997, Comet
Hale-Bopp will be the brightest comet since Comet
Hyakutake in 1996.
Go to http://newproducts.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/index.html to
learn more about this comet.
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ON-LINE DINOSAUR EXHIBIT AT THE MUSEUM OF
VICTORIA
Explore the T-rex surfer site which was built as an on-line
extension of the Museum of Victoria. This graphic filled web
site has a vertebrate paleontolgy link list, an on-line Hall of
Archosaurs, information as to what a dinosaur is,
classification information, an in depth exhibition of selected
dinosaur species, size and weight descriptions, and an
evalution on dinosaur speed (including who is the fastest
dinosaur). You can also explore Mesozoic Canada by
browsing the T-rex surfer site.
Go to http://pioneer.mov.vic.gov.au/dinoExhibit/safari.html
to explore this museum.
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DINOSAURS IN NEW MEXICO HAS BEEN UPDATED
The web site "Dinosaurs in New Mexico" of the New Mexico
Museum of Natural History has been updated. New as of
Tuesday, February 4, 1997, they have added a some more
information about some of the dinosaurs featured in our New
Mexico Dinosaur Dictionary. There is also an update about
the dinosaur skin found in New Mexico.
Go to http://www.nmmnh-
abq.mus.nm.us/nmmnh/dinosinnm.html to explore this site.
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EXPLORE THE U.K. NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
ON-LINE
The Department of Palaeontology of the British Natural
History Museum houses a collection of over nine million
specimens and has extensive laboratory and library facilities.
Over 50 palaeontologists work in the Department, making it
the largest centre for this science in the western world. The
on-line exhibits of this museum include Ancient nucleic acids
from amber-preserved insects, Human origins, Mass
extinctions at the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary,
Miocene vertebrate fossils of Arabia, Origin and early
evolution of Tetrapods.
Go to http://www.nhm.ac.uk/science/palaeo/index.html to
explore this museum.
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