Please visit: reevesAstronomy Public, which is editable by anyone wishing to do so.
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Spirit and Opportunity Celebrate their 5th Year on Mars

The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity celebrated their fifth year on Mars on Jan. 3/08. Although Opportunity
has one seized up wheel and has to drive backwards while Spirit constantly struggles with its dust coated solar
panels, they both continue to operate and continue to collect scientific data. Their greatest achievement to date
is collecting the evidence to confirm that Mars was once coated with large quantities of water in the past. As of
Jan. 3/08, Spirit has been on Mars 1333 sols (Martian days) and Opportunity has been on Mars 1312 sols. Keep
up to date on what Spirit and Opportunity is doing at the Mars Exploration Rover Mission website.
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Comet McNaught (reevesAstronomy comet of the year 2007)
Comet McNaught, the brightest comet in 41 years, was seen by many and missed by many. In this photograph the tail

is shown trailing to the north in a widely dispersed trail of dust and gas blown off of the nucleus by the solar wind.
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2008 in Astronomy :

8)NASA turned 50 years old this year, while the international space Station turned 10.

7)Microbes discovered to be able to survive at subzero or boiling hot temperatures - Most extreme
life forms in the universe, Colwellia psychrerythraea (subzero microbe), Haloarcula marismortui (extreme salt lover),
Pyrolobus fumari (heat lover)

6)Possible dark matter detection - read more

5)Huge asteroid collision left Mars lopsided - read more, & more

4)Genetic buildings blocks found in 1969 meteorite, originated in space - read here, & more here

3)Black holes galore - fastest black hole moving at 2,650 kilometers per second, most massive black hole:
18 billion solar masses, smallest known black hole: 3.8 solar masses, fastest spinning black hole

2)Phoenix lander directly images and detects water ice on Mars - read more, & more

1) Exoplanets directly imaged around other stars - Exoplanet orbiting Fomalhaut,
image of HR 8799 multi-planet system, image of the planet orbiting Fomalhaut, Beta Pictoris's massive planet

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