A couple of new sites this week, worth visiting for space geeks.
Of most immediate relevance is the European Space Agency's Columbus blog, tracking all things relevant to the launch and installation of the Columbus science module at the International Space Station. It will be taken up by the Atlantis shuttle, launching Thursday, and will slowly begin serving as a home for a variety of exobiology and other experiments over time.
French astronaut Léopold Eyharts and German colleague Hans Schlegel will be heading up on the shuttle to help with the commissioning process. Like other modules before it, Columbus will require a relatively tricky attachment operation before it can be used.
Over on the American side of the Internet, NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory has launched a new PlanetQuest site specifically geared toward people obsessed with the hunt for planets in other solar systems.
It comes complete with a downloadable desktop widget with which you can keep track of stats like how many planets have been found (264 so far), how many Earth-like have been spotted (still zero), and more. Whether the baseball-ticker treatment is quite necessary for something as slow-moving as this, I'm not sure, but it's still a nice touch.
ESA: Columbus blog
JPL: PlanetQuest: Exoplanet exploration
(Image: Exterior view of the Columbus lab, pre-launch. Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja )
