Sep 14 2006
From The Space Library
Crew members of the ISS and Atlantis successfully unfolded two new solar arrays for the ISS’s power system, thereby increasing the station’s capacity for producing electricity. The 240-footlong (73.2-meter-long) arrays were components of the station’s truss structure. Astronauts had installed an identical set of arrays at the ISS in 2000, and NASA planned to install two additional arrays during Shuttle flights in 2007 and 2008. Although the new arrays were already generating electricity, the generated power would not feed into the station’s power grid until the rewiring and activation of a related cooling system, which NASA had scheduled for completion in December 2006. NASA estimated that, once the crew had installed all of the arrays, the structures would double the ISS’s electrical power to an estimated total power of 75 to 110 kilowatts. The ISS’s international partners intended for the additional power to support European, Japanese, Russian, and U.S. laboratory modules and to enable the ISS’s life-support system to support up to six astronauts.
Mark Carreau, “NASA Unfurls Set of Solar Panels To Power Space Station,” Houston Chronicle, 15 September 2006; NASA, “STS-115.”
Scientists published research indicating that the number of galaxies in the universe had sharply increased 700 million to 900 million years after the Big Bang. The finding provided important information about the formation of galaxies and the composition of stars. Rychard J. Bouwens and Garth D. Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, had used data from NASA’s HST to determine that, beginning 700 million years after the Big Bang, the number of galaxies had increased tenfold in 200 million years. Another team of researchers, led by Masanori Iye of the National Astronomical Observatory in Tokyo, had found a similar increase in galaxy formation during the same period. These findings supported a prevailing theory of galaxy formation, which held that luminous galaxies were rare in the universe’s earliest times. As heavy elements, such as carbon, iron, and oxygen emerged, these new elements had formed the building blocks for stars and galaxies. The team cautioned that astronomers would need to make further observations to determine more certainly how galaxies had formed during the universe’s nascent years.
Dennis Overbye, “The Boom in Galaxies After the Big Bang,” New York Times, 14 September 2006; Rychard J. Bouwens and Garth D. Illingworth, “Rapid Evolution of the Most Luminous Galaxies During the First 900 Million Years,” Nature 443, no. 7108 (14 September 2006): 189–192, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v443/n7108/abs/nature05156.html (DOI 10.1038/nature05156; accessed 29 June 2010).
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