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1999

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  • Leonids Control Center monitors meteor activity

    Nov. 16, 1999

    International team will provide meteor counts for satellite operators

  • Scientists grow heart tissue in Bioreactor

    Oct. 5, 1999

    MIT scientists use a NASA-developed device in a first step towards tissue engineering. The cell constructs are less than 1/5-inch across, but represent a significant step in developing replacement parts for damaged organs.

  • Spirits of Another Sort

    June 10, 1999

    Dave Sentman, who originally dubbed the mysterious red flickers of light above thunderclouds Sprites, works to move them from the realm of mystery into scientific knowledge.

  • The Case of the Missing Moon Water

    Sept. 3, 1999

    Lunar Prospector failed to kick up a visible dust cloud when it crashed into the Moon, but researchers are still sifting through their data for elusive signatures of water.

  • Three bolts from the blue

    June 8, 1999

    Does Lightningaffect the ozone layer? What causes "sprites?" And why does "messy" Lightningfollow a simple Lightningmodel? Hoping to stimulate further thought about the Physicsof lightning, Martin Uman of the University of Florida posed these fundamental questions to atmospheric scientists attending a scientific conference this week.

  • NASA Announces Mars Landing Site

    Aug. 25, 1999

    Mars Polar Lander heads for a touch down near the Red Planet's south pole to study the history of martian climate.

  • The Sun's Sizzling Corona

    Sept. 2, 1999

    Scientists continue to ponder one of our star's most closely guarded secrets - why does the solar corona get hotter farther from the Sun's surface?

  • Who wrote the Book of Life?

    May 28, 1999

    NASA scientists are using neural networks to teach a computer how to recognize life when it sees it. By practicing first on images of terrestrial life, remote instruments someday may be able to identify life forms elsewhere in the solar system.

  • Leonids Rain in Spain

    Nov. 18, 1999

    An outburst of over 1500 Leonid Meteorsper hour dazzled observers in Europe and the Middle East.

  • BATSE Finds Most Distant Quasar Yet Seen in Soft Gamma Rays

    Nov. 24, 1999

    Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, a supermassive black hole burped and sent a flash of gamma rays that arrived at Earth 11 billion years later. Observations by the Burst and Transient Source Experiment will help give insight into the birth and life of quasars.