Jan 18 1996
From The Space Library
Astronauts aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour tested new NASA spacesuits in extreme cold. In preparation for work on the ISS, U.S. astronaut Winston E. Scott stood nearly motionless in space for 35 minutes, in temperatures nearing 100° below 0°F (-73.33°C), to test the suit's insulating capacity. In completing the exercise, Scott became the second African American man to walk in space. The newly improved suits, produced at a cost of US$ 10 million each, proved an effective barrier against the cold. The gloves and the boots of the suits contained heating elements. NASA made the thermal improvements to the spacesuits after the astronauts became cold during the February 1995 spacewalk, causing its early termination.
At a conference of the American Astronomical Society in San Antonio, Texas, a team of U.S. astronomers announced the discovery of two new stars with the characteristics to sustain life within their solar systems. The astronomers identified the bodies, both visible to the naked eye, as star 70 Virginis in the constellation Virgo and a star orbiting 47 Ursae Majoris in the Big Dipper. Geoffrey Marcy and Paul Butler, researchers affiliated with the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco State University, spent nine years monitoring 120 Sun-like stars in order to discover the two stars.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
