Archaeologists working in western Egypt believe they may have discovered the remains of the army of the Persian King Cambyses II. According to Herodotus, the army, which numbered 50,000, was destroyed by a sandstorm in 525 BCE. The expedition, which has uncovered hundreds of bones, bronze weapons, and jewelry, is being led by Italian archaeologists Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni.
Rocket scientist Qian Xuesen (b.1911) died on October 31. Qian, also known as H.S. Tsien, was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His work wouuld be the inspiration for the Dyno-soar project. During the 1950s, he was accused of being a communist sympathizer, stripped of security clearance. Attempting to return to his native China, he was detained by the US for five years. In China, he became known as the Father of Chinese Rocketry.
The NASA Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) sent a Centaur rocket into the Cabeus crater, making a new crater about 18 meters across. Scientists plan to study the debris arc to learn about the chemical makeup of the region, and hope to find traces of water ice. Although there was hope that the debris would be visible through small telescopes from Earth, no such debris was spotted. Scientists have received spectrometer data and are working to decipher it.
An enormous ring has been discovered around Saturn. Spotted by the Spitzer Space Telescope, the dust ring was seen in the infrared spectrum, where it shows a temperature of -193°C (-316°F). The new ring begins about 5.95 million km (3.7 million miles) from the planet and extends for 11.9 million km (7.4 million miles). The ring encompasses the orbit o Saturn’s moon Phoebe, and like Phoebe it orbits Saturn in a retrograde motion. According to a JPL spokewoman, this is the first time Saturn was explored with an infrared instrument.
Astronaut Frank Caldeiro (b.1958) died of brain cancer on October 3. Caldeiro worked on 52 shuttle launches before being selected for the astronaut corps in 1996. The first Argentinean to train for spaceflight, Caldeiro specialized in cryogenics and propulsion systems and directed the high-altitude atmospheric research experiment program carried onboard NASA’s WB-57 aircraft.
Cosmonaut Pavel Popovich (b.1930) died on September 30 following a stroke. Popovich flew aboard the Vostok 4 in 1962 and the Soyux 14 in 1974. Vostok 4 was part of the first dual space flight and Soyux 14 was the first successful mission to the Salyut 3 space station. Throughout the 1980s, he served as Deputy Chief of the Gagarin Cosmonauts Training Center. He was an advocate into the study of UFOs and claimed to have seen one on a flight from the US to Russia. An asteroid and an Antarctic mountain range are named in his honor.
India has ended its first unmanned lunar mission after attempting to regain contact with its lost spacecraft. India lost contact with Chandrayaan-I on August 29 and has determined that there is no way to reestablish communications, although India has requested help from both the United States and Russia in locating the missing craft. According to Indian sources, the satellite, which is already in lunar orbit, has completed most of its scientific missions and has already completed 3400 orbits.
Scientists have announced that the dark plains on Saturn’s moon Titan will be named for planets in Frank Herbert’s six-volume series which began with the novel Dune. The first plain to bear an Herbertian name is Chusuk planitia, located at 5°S, 23.5°W. Chusuk was a planet reknowned for its fine musical instruments.
Anthony Wesley, an amateur astronomer from Murrumbateman, Australia noticed a strange marking on Jupiter and contacted NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which confirmed that Wesley had discovered the aftermath of an impact of some item on Jupiter’s atmosphere, the first time this has happened since Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994. NASA believes the impact may have been a comet, which left a black spot on Jupiter, but hasn’t confirmed it yet.
The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum has set up a website which will recreate the Apollo 11 mission in real time on the fortieth anniversary of the event. The website will go live at 8:02 AM ET on Thursday, July 16, ninety minutes before that anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch and will continue throughout the entire mission, which included Armstrong and Aldrin’s first walk on the moon on July 20.