Oct 16 2008
From The Space Library
Harrison “Jack” H. Schmitt, a scientist, former astronaut, and former U.S. Senator, announced that he was resigning as Chair of the NASA Advisory Council. The NASA Advisory Council, a panel of experts in various fields, advised the NASA Administrator on major policy. Since becoming Chair in November 2005, Schmitt had led the Advisory Council in submitting over 100 recommendations to the NASA Administrator. He had been the primary advocate behind a February 2007 workshop that produced 35 scientific recommendations related to NASA’s return to the Moon and had led the Advisory Council’s efforts to build relationships fostering the use of the ISS as a national laboratory. NASA named Kenneth M. Ford as the new Advisory Council Chair. Ford had served on the Exploration Committee of the Advisory Council since June 2007. He was the founder and Director of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Ford had developed and directed NASA’s Center of Excellence in Information Technology at NASA’s ARC. He had also served as both Director and Associate Director of NASA’s ARC. A recipient of NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal and the Robert S. Englemore Memorial Award, Ford had served on the U.S. Air Force Science Advisory Board and the National Science Board. He was also a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
NASA, “Schmitt Completes NASA Advisory Council service; Ford Named Chairman,” news release 08-262, 16 October 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/oct/HQ_08-261_Scmitt_Leaves_NAC.html (accessed 8 August 2011).
A team of astronomers led by Peter F. Michelson of Stanford University announced in the online version of the journal Science that NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope had discovered a pulsar after detecting its gamma-ray beams. Pulsars, which are rapidly spinning collapsed neutron stars, emit radiation from their poles in jets that sweep past Earth. Usually, scientists detect the energy as radio waves and, occasionally, as x rays or visible light. Fermi’s sighting was the first time that scientists had seen a pulsar that only emits gamma rays. The team speculated that, although the pulsar might emit energy in other wavelengths, only the gamma-ray beam is wide enough for astronomers to detect from Earth. Part of the supernova CTA 1, the pulsar is approximately 4,600 light-years away from Earth, in the constellation Cepheus. Its gamma rays blink past Earth every 316.86 seconds. The team of astronomers believed that Fermi would find more gamma-ray pulsars, allowing scientists to learn more about their magnetic fields and about the rate at which stars explode.
NASA, “NASA’s Fermi’s Telescope Discovers First Gamma-Ray-Only Pulsar,” news release 08-259, 16 October 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/oct/HQ_08-259_Fermi_GRP.html (accessed 8 August 2011); Rachel Courtland, “First Pulsar Identified by Its Gamma Rays Alone,” New Scientist, 17 October 2008, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14968 (accessed 10 August 2011); see also A. A. Abdo, “The Fermi Gamma- Ray Space Telescope Discovers the Pulsar in the Young Galactic Supernova Remnant CTA 1,” Science 322, no. 5905 (21 November 2008): 1218-1221.
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