The asteroid will tell about the origin of the solar system

Tiny pieces of rock the size of 50-100 microns - thinner than a human hair - were taken from the asteroid Itokawa Japanese Hayabusa mission. They were carefully extracted by experts from the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester.

This case was the first, when the samples collected on the asteroid were returned to Earth. Only 70 samples were provided for international analysis, and seven of them - to study at this university.

"Eye" spiral nebula is blue

Helix Nebula (snail) is often called the "Eye of God" or "Eye of Sauron", and do not reject that this place looks like a cosmic eye, looks straight at us. On the new image, which combined the image transmitted from the telescope "Spitzer" and GALEX, the eye appears to us in a blue shade that complements the palette of gold, green and turquoise of the nebula, obtained previously by other observatories.

Curiosity first sample of Martian soil

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity first dig a soil sample of the Red Planet this weekend, mission scientists announced yesterday, October 4.

1-ton rover arrived at the sandy area called "Rocknest", on Wednesday, October 3. Scientists have found a place suitable for his first robot operations associated with the extraction of soil samples with the bucket, which should start on Saturday, 6 October, if all goes according to plan.