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News briefs: August 10-11
Posted: Mon, Aug 12, 2002, 8:07 AM ET (1207 GMT)
- A Spanish company has designed a mission that could test one technique for deflecting dangerous asteroids. The "Don Quixote" mission would use two spacecraft: one to collide with the asteroid and another that would fly by it, measuring any deflection in its orbit caused by the collision. The company proposing the mission, Deimos-Space, said it hopes ESA will fund it.
- A European telescope has taken the sharpest image of the Moon ever made from an Earth-based telescope. The image of a portion of the Taruntius crater was taken with an adaptive optics system on one of the four 8.2-meter telescope of the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in Chile. The image was taken during testing of the adaptive optics system.
- Medicinal herbs flown in space grew larger and hardier than their Earthbound counterparts, Chinese media reported this weekend. Researchers said that seeds flown in space and returned to Earth later grew better, although they offered no explanation for the improvement.
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