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Special Section:
Life on Mars?

Sites of the Week for March 1997

Week of March 3, 1997

Apollo Lunar Surface Journal

This site is an excellent resource for information about the Apollo Moon landings. The highlight is the collection of annotated transcripts from the missions, so you can read what the astronauts said during each mission (and really understand what's going on, thanks to the annotations.) There's also a lot more background information and features about each mission. A great place to go to relive (or live, if you're young enough) the missions.

http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/alsj/

Current Locations of Manned Spacecraft

Because the spacecraft used by the United States and the Soviet Union in the space race were not reusable, the capsules that returned their crews to Earth became museum pieces after each mission. These capsules, particularly the American ones, have found a diverse set of homes around the world. This page provides a concise list of where these spacecraft are currently located, with some notes about their current status.

http://xenon.stanford.edu/~rsf/CapsuleLocations.html

Week of March 10, 1997

Minor Planet Designations

As the number of discovered asteroids continues to grow, more and more names of people and places are being attached to these bodies. With the pantheon of names from mythology all but exhausted, asteroids today are named after cities, people, and more. The Minor Planet Designations page at the Minor Planets Center provides a searchable database of names, so you can see if your favorite name has already been given to an asteroid, like (4148) McCartney, (334) Chicago, and even (2309) Mr. Spock (it's named after a cat - really!). There are links to a wider array of resources about asteroids provided by the MPC as well.

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/MPDes.html

The SETI League

There's a misconception that the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) requires large radio telescopes and multimillion dollar funding. While these resources are certainly useful, the SETI League is trying to show that amateurs, using small homebuilt radio dishes, can also participate. Their Web site has information about Project Argus, a plan to deploy 5,000 small radio telescopes for an all-sky SETI project, as well as more information about the organization and SETI in general.

http://www.setileague.org/

Week of March 17, 1997

NASA Near-Live Comet Watching System

The Internet has given us the ability to make images easily available to a wide audience, and also to make information available almost instantly. NASA's Near-Live Comet Watching System combines both, giving uses a chance to see images of the comet, some of which may have been taken just a few minutes earlier. You can scan through the list of latest images, look for older images, or submit your own images of the comet you've just taken. Impressive!

http://comet.hq.nasa.gov

Australian Space Home Page

Australia might not be thought as much of a spacefaring power, but it does have a strong history of participation in the Space Age. From launches at Woomera to the latest collaborations with Japan and plans for the future (budgets willing), this site provides a history and detailed information about Australia's role in space.

http://banzai.apana.org.au/

Week of March 24, 1997

Comet Hale-Bopp Home Page (JPL)

By amassing a collection of nearly 2,000 Hale-Bopp images (perhaps more, depending on when you read this), Ron Baalke has created one of the premier Hale-Bopp Web sites available. There's more than images available, as well: there's information about the comet itself, how to observe it, and more. The link shown here is to a mirror site that's more responsive than the original site at http://newproducts.jpl.nasa.gov/comet/, which has bogged down due to tremendous traffic.

http://galileo.ivv.nasa.gov/comet/

STS-86 Crew Web Site

NASA has created a lot of Web sites about past and future shuttle missions, but for the first time a shuttle *crew* has created its own Web site. The STS-86 crew has set up an extensive site with information about their mission, the 7th docking between the shuttle and Mir, scheduled for late this year. This group of astronauts has proved it can successfully navigate through space and cyberspace!

http://www.phoenix.net/~shuttle/

Week of March 31, 1997

www.halebopp.com

There are Comet Hale-Bopp Web sites, and then.. there are Comet Hale-Bopp Web sites! At www.halebopp.com you can read the latest news about the comet and related issues (including articles by comet co-discoverer Alan Hale), view comet images, and also find out what's behind all the "controversy" about the comet and alleged objects following it. This is definitely one of the places to go on the Web to learn more about the comet.

http://www.halebopp.com/

Solar System 3-D: Planets and Satellites

Images from spacecraft have provided us with dramatic views of planets, moons, and other objects in the solar system. However, images lack one important quality: they are only two-dimensional. A group at the Lunar and Planetary Institute has created a set of stereo images of solar system bodies by combining images taken of the same object at different angles, providing some degree of depth to the images. The images generally require a pair of 3-D (red and blue or red and green) classes to get the 3-D effect, but once you have them the images can be quite dramatic!

http://cass.jsc.nasa.gov/research/stereo_atlas/SS3D.HTM