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Welcome to the Prentice Hall/New York Times eThemes
of the Times collection for Astronomy
Prentice Hall/Pearson Education, in collaboration with the world's leading
newspaper, The New York Times, is pleased to offer you a carefully edited
collection of recent New York Times articles. This selection of articles
provides a real world glimpse into important topics discussed in your textbook.
To learn more about Prentice Hall products, please visit
http://www.prenhall.com
To begin using this collection, click on an article from the contents section on the left-hand side of this page.
eThemes of the Times Articles
A New View Of Our Universe: Only One
of Many
By DENNIS OVERBYE
October
29, 2002
Astronomers have gazed out at the universe for centuries, asking why it is the
way it is. But lately a growing number of them are dreaming of universes that
never were and asking, why not?
Cosmos Sits for Early Portrait,
Gives Up Secrets
By DENNIS OVERBYE
February
12, 2003
The most detailed and precise map yet produced of the universe just after its
birth confirms the Big Bang theory in triumphant detail and opens new chapters
in the early history of the cosmos, astronomers said yesterday.
In Galaxies Near and Far, New Views
of Universe Emerge
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
January
14, 2003
SEATTLE, Jan. 10 -- Some astronomers came and exulted over glimpses of objects
so far away and thus so long ago, about 13 billion light-years, that they opened
eyes and minds to the universe as it was soon after stars and galaxies first
began popping up everywhere.
Astronomers Foresee Enormous
Collision of Two Black Holes
By WARREN E. LEARY
November
20, 2002
WASHINGTON, Nov. 19 -- Two giant black holes have been found at the center of a
galaxy born from the joining of two smaller galaxies and are drifting toward a
cataclysmic collision that will send ripples throughout the universe many
millions of years from now, scientists said today.
New Method Detects Planet Very
Distant
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
January
7, 2003
SEATTLE, Jan. 6 -- Beyond the Sun's neighborhood, out in another spiral arm
of the Milky Way, scientists have found a strange planet that orbits so close to
its parent star that a year passes every 29 hours. Temperatures on the planet,
whose mass is similar to that of Jupiter, are melting hot, and the skies may be
cloudy from time to time, with occasional showers of microscopic droplets of
iron.
New Eyes in Space, Even Sharper Than
Hubble's
By WARREN E. LEARY
September
17, 2002
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 -- Even in astronomy, there are some tough acts to follow.
After parting a curtain to the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope and
allowing millions to experience previously hidden wonders in space, what do you
do for an encore?
NASA Starts Planning Hubble's
Going-Away Party
By WARREN E. LEARY
September
17, 2002
Although the Hubble Space Telescope is only halfway through its anticipated
career, planning has begun for its retirement party. The 12.5-ton observatory,
which for more than a decade has dazzled astronomers and the public alike with
its views of the universe, cannot stay in space forever.
Telescopes Find a Miniplanet At the
Solar System's Edge
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
October
8, 2002
Looking beyond the known planets of the Sun, out among an orbiting multitude of
small icy bodies, astronomers have seen and measured a miniplanet, more than
half the size of Pluto, that is the largest object in the solar system to be
detected since the discovery of Pluto in 1930.
The Universe, as a Babe of 400,000
Years
By DENNIS OVERBYE
January
7, 2003
Using a radio telescope chilled to a fraction of a degree above absolute zero at
the South Pole, astronomers have produced what they say are the most detailed
pictures yet of the infant universe.
Finding Martian Landscapes, Here on
Earth
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE
January
28, 2003
BEACON VALLEY, Antarctica -- Scientists who study Mars have been coming here for
30 years to learn how an ultracold, bone dry climate shapes the terrestrial, and
perhaps Martian, landscape. But they never, until now, thought about monster
glaciers that vanish like phantoms in the night.
New Type of Black Hole May Offer
Galactic Insight
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
September
18, 2002
The Hubble Space Telescope has detected the first clear evidence for a new
category of cosmic black holes, astronomers reported yesterday. The discovery is
expected to yield insights about the evolution of black holes and the formation
of star clusters and galaxies in the early universe.
Weather on Pluto, Too, Is Exercise
in Conjecture
By KENNETH CHANG
August
27, 2002
The weather report for Pluto remains unclear. Astronomers from the Lowell
Observatory in Arizona and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say the
atmosphere has chilled 20 to 55 degrees in the last 14 years, the surface may
have warmed a smidgen, and a low-lying layer of smog has cleared up.
Photos Bolster Idea of Water, and
Possibly Life, on Mars
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
February
20, 2003
A new theory and a revised interpretation of earlier observations have bolstered
the idea that Mars has more water than previously thought and encouraged
speculation about the possibility of life on the planet.
3 Nobels for Solving Longstanding
Mysteries of the Cosmos
By DENNIS OVERBYE
October
9, 2002
Two scientists who used underground vats of water and cleaning fluid to see into
the hearts of stars and a third, who deployed X-ray sensors in space to detect
the invisible violence rattling the cosmos, won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics
yesterday.
Radio Telescope Proves A Big Bang
Prediction
By DENNIS OVERBYE
September
20, 2002
CHICAGO, Sept. 19 -- After 271 20-hour nights of staring at the Antarctic sky, a
radio telescope at the South Pole has confirmed a critical prediction of the Big
Bang theory of the origin of the universe, astronomers from the University of
Chicago and the University of California announced here today.
Star's 'Wink' May Be
Clue To Creation Of Planets
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
June 20,
2002
A young star far away in the galaxy is winking in a regular pattern that
astronomers say is unlike anything seen before. If science learns to read those
signals, they may deliver a message about the early stages of planet formation.
Armageddon Can Wait: Stopping Killer
Asteroids
By HENRY
FOUNTAIN
November 19, 2002
Sooner or later, it's bound to happen. Sooner or later, scientists who
study Earth-crossing asteroids say, astronomers will find one that has a
significant chance of striking the planet.
Scientists Find Signs Big Meteor Hit
Earth 3.5 Billion Years Ago
By KENNETH CHANG
August
23, 2002
From the decay of uranium in tiny ancient crystals, geologists have dated the
earliest and probably largest known meteor impact on Earth. Writing in
today's issue of the journal Science, researchers from Louisiana State
University, Stanford University and the U.S. Geological Survey report that an
asteroid, estimated to be 12 to 30 miles wide, slammed into Earth nearly 3.5
billion years ago.
Punta Arenas Journal; In an
Upside-Down World, Sunshine Is Shunned
By LARRY ROHTER
December
27, 2002
PUNTA ARENAS, Chile -- Everything is different here at the bottom of the world,
starting with the weather. Before Alejandra Mundaca lets her two children go
out, she checks the forecast for the temperature, chances of rain and also the
level of ultraviolet rays.
What Lowell Really Saw When He
Watched Venus
By LEON JAROFF
September
10, 2002
While an observatory in Arizona bears his name, Percival Lowell is best known
for his obsession with Mars and his conviction that intelligent life had once
existed on the planet.
Mars Canyons Tied to Rains After
Meteor Impacts
By KENNETH CHANG
December
6, 2002
The vast canyons and river valleys of Mars may have been carved by brief bursts
of near-boiling torrential rains that followed giant meteor impacts, scientists
are reporting today. The new research appears to rebut the common notion that
Mars passed through an Earth-like warm, wet phase lasting hundreds of millions
of years, with an ocean covering its northern hemisphere and steadily flowing
rivers crisscrossing the southern highlands.
New and Improving Retrieval of
Signals From Distant Space
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
June 18,
2002
PLAINS OF SAN AUGUSTIN, N.M. -- ''This entire plain is one big
telescope,'' Dr. James Ulvestad, an astronomer, said with proprietary
pride. In three directions, reaching miles across an expanse of desert high
(elevation 7,000 feet) and broad (almost as big as Connecticut), 27 radio
telescopes stand at attention, like giant ears cocked to the heavens.
Now, the Space Station: Grieving,
Imperiled
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
February
4, 2003
The grounding of the three remaining space shuttles after the destruction of
Columbia poses enormous, and potentially calamitous, challenges for the
International Space Station and the 16 countries trying to maintain it as a
permanent foothold in space. All of the shuttle launchings scheduled for this
year and early 2004 were missions to ferry crews or components to the station,
which has been under construction since 1998.
'Some of It Will Be Their
Legacy': The Data That Survived Disaster
By WARREN E. LEARY
February
4, 2003
HOUSTON, Feb. 3 -- Though the space shuttle Columbia was lost, much of the
scientific data its crew members collected was not, and it will be their lasting
legacy, researchers said today.
Flurry of Satellites to Monitor
Earth and Examine Galaxy
By WARREN E. LEARY
December
10, 2002
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 -- NASA will finish its year of space exploration by
launching a small flurry of satellite missions to monitor the ice and sea winds
of Earth and to look at the bubble of hot gas that surrounds the Milky Way.
Another Cousin to Jupiter Is
Found
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
June 19,
2002
For the second time in a week, astronomers yesterday announced the discovery of
a Jupiter-like planet around a distant star, and they say this one could be part
of a planetary system more similar to the Sun's than any yet discovered.
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