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Science News,  Jan 14, 1995  by Ron Cowen

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May

* Ulysses, which last year became the first craft to view the sun's south polar region, now embarks on a pioneering study of the sun's far north. The joint ESA-NASA mission will reach about 70 N solar latitude in May and spend the next 4 months even farther north, observing the sun at a distance of some 330 million kilometers. Researchers are eager to find out if some of the surprises about the sun's magnetic field discovered by Ulysses in the south will hold true in the north (SN: 11/19/94, p.326).

* NASA sends aloft the newest U.S. geostationary weather satellite. The high-altitude orbits of these craft allow them to rotate at the same rate as Earth and to keep a continuous weather watch over a particular region of our planet. Collectively known as the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) series, the latest craft, GOES-J, will monitor atmospheric temperatures, humidities, wind velocities, and the development of storms over Earth's Western Hemisphere.

June

* By studying the chemistry of dense interstellar clouds, astronomers expect to gain a better understanding of how these clouds collapse to form stars and, perhaps, planetary systems. Radio telescopes on Earth can't detect molecular oxygen and water vapor in interstellar clouds because their abundance in our planet's atmosphere confounds observations.

Carried above the atmosphere by a Pegasus launch vehicle, NASA's

Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) will chart the distribution and abundance of water vapor, molecular oxygen, carbon, and carbon monoxide in any large stellar nursery within 3,000 light-years of Earth.

"We know a lot about these clouds from the ground, but we don't have any idea of the abundance of oxygen or water," notes Weedman. "This is kind of the last link in the chain."

SWAS will also observe some gas-rich regions beyond the Milky Way, including its nearest neighbors, the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud galaxies.

July

* The Galileo spacecraft, en route to its December rendezvous with Jupiter, will release a free-falling probe meant to parachute into the planet's atmosphere on Dec. 7.

* Strapped in the payload bay of the shuttle, a suite of instruments known as the International Extreme Ultraviolet Hitchhiker will cast its UV eyes on Jupiter and its moons, the sun, and a host of hot stars. This joint

U.S.-Italian mission is in part a test run. Using its UV imaging spectrometer, known as UVSTAR, Hitchhiker will practice making observations of Jupiter and the doughnut-shaped region of hot gas that envelops the planet and its moon Io. UVSTAR will also analyze emissions from hot UV-bright stars in the Milky Way.

The Jovian observations will take on special significance during

Hitchhiker's second shuttle flight in mid-1996, when it studies Jupiter in tandem with the Galileo spacecraft. While Galileo makes a close-up tour of the giant planet and its moons, the shuttle probe will record Jovian UV emissions as seen from afar at wavelengths ranging from 50 to 125 nanometers.