LISA

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious ship which will peer far and wide... The European Space Agency is being very sensible and mapping out its schedule for large and medium science missions for the medium term, under the Cosmic Vision program. In particular, the first of the large missions, L1, has been chosen and is JUICE, Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - a Jovian orbiter scheduled for launch in 2022, to study the three outer Galilean Moons. Athena The other mission concepts which competed for the L1 mission slot were Athena, a reformulated large X-ray observatory - Athena is revisit of the…

"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -Isaac Asimov One of the most spectacular and successful ideas of the 20th Century was Einstein's General Relativity, or the idea that matter and energy determines the curvature of spacetime, and the curvature of spacetime in turn determines how gravitation works. Image credit: Hyper-Mathematics - Uzayzaman / Spacetime. From the orbits of planets to the bending of starlight, General Relativity governs all gravitational phenomena in the Universe, and accurately describes every observation we've…

NASA has some official word on what is going on in astrophysics in general and with LISA in particular. LISA and IXO ended. Teams supported through Oct '11, if budget is not cut more. New concept studies. LISA and Changes in the Cosmic Vision Programme (pdf) LISA and Changes in the Cosmic Vision Programme "Based on discussions with the European Space Agency (ESA) at the recent ESA- NASA bilateral meeting, we provide the following information concerning LISA. Readers are advised to refer to any ESA postings - when available - for details and clarifications regarding the Cosmic Vision…