Press Releases - March 2006
| Current Press Releases |
31 March 2006 - ESA
Venus within ESA probe reach
After its five-month, 400 million kilometre journey inside our solar system following its lift-off on 9 November 2005, ESA's probe Venus Express will finally arrive on 11 April at its destination: planet Venus.
28 March 2006 - EIROforum
Bringing science out of the lab into the classroom
Science is moving more rapidly than ever; one groundbreaking discovery chases the next at an incredible speed. Today, Europe's major research organisations launch Science in School, the first international, multidisciplinary journal for innovative science teaching, to provide a platform for communication between science teachers, practising scientists and other stakeholders in science education.
23 March 2006 - ESA
European Robotics under the spotlight
The European Robotic Arm (ERA), one of ESA's most important contributions to the International Space Station, will be delivered to Russia this summer in preparation for a launch to the ISS in 2007. ESA and Dutch Space have organised the European Robotics Media Day for 5 April 2006 to provide the media with the opportunity to become acquainted with ERA and the engineers behind this ambitious project (see attached programme).
22 March 2006 - ESO
The Sun's New Exotic Neighbour
Using Eso's Very Large Telescope in Chile, an international team of researchers discovered a brown dwarf belonging to the 24th closest stellar system to the Sun. Brown dwarfs are intermediate objects that are neither stars nor planets. This object is the third closest brown dwarf to the Earth yet discovered, and one of the coolest, having a temperature of about 750 degrees Centigrade. It orbits a very small star at about 4.5 times the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. Its mass is estimated to be somewhere between 9 and 65 times the mass of Jupiter.
17 March 2006 - ESA
600 metre frieze of planet Earth around UNESCO
A frieze depicting planet Earth - made up of 1:1000000 scale satellite images - will be unfurled around UNESCO's Paris headquarters building from 29 March to 4 November. The "Belle île en ciel" exhibition, organised by UNESCO as part of its 60th birthday celebrations, will be officially opened on 29 March (at 5 p.m.) in the presence of UNESCO Director General Koïchiro Matsuura, ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain and Parc Européen du Volcanisme 'Vulcania' President Jean Mallot.
16 March 2006 - EMBL
A balancing act between the sexes
Recent research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) reveals new insights into how cells achieve equality between the sexes. A new link discovered between the membrane surrounding the nucleus and the male X-chromosome in fruit flies may play a crucial role in determining how active certain genes are. The study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Molecular Cell, may help researchers understand how male and female cells manage to produce the same quantities of certain proteins.
15 March 2006 - ESO
The Cosmic Dance of Distant Galaxies
Studying several tens of distant galaxies, an international team of astronomers found that galaxies had the same amount of dark matter relative to stars 6 billion years ago as they have now. If confirmed, this suggests a much closer interplay between dark and normal matter than previously believed. The scientists also found that as many as 4 out of 10 galaxies are out of balance. These results shed a new light on how galaxies form and evolve since the Universe was only half its current age.
2 March 2006 - EMBL/ESRF
A new tree of life allows a closer look at the origin of species
In 1870 the German scientist Ernst Haeckel mapped the evolutionary relationships of plants and animals in the first 'tree of life'. Since then scientists have continuously redrawn and expanded the tree adding microorganisms and using modern molecular data, yet, many parts of the tree have remained unclear. Now a group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg has developed a computational method that resolves many of the open questions and produced what is likely the most accurate tree ever.
2 March 2006 - ESA
Joint Statement International Space Station Heads of Agency 2 March 2006, Kennedy Space Center, Florida
The heads of space agencies from Canada, Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States met at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on March 2, 2006, to review International Space Station (ISS) cooperation and endorse a revision to the ISS configuration and assembly sequence.