NASA Daily News Summary For Release: May 3, 2000 Media Advisory m00-88 SUMMARY NEWS RELEASES: LOST AND FOUND: HUBBLE FINDS MUCH OF THE UNIVERSE'S MISSING HYDROGEN NASA HONORS STUDENT WINNERS VIDEO ALL TIMES EASTERN VIDEO FILE FOR MAY 3, 2000 ITEM 1 - GOES-L Launch - KSC (replay) ITEM 2 - GOES-L PRELAUNCH PACKAGE - GSFC (replay) Item 3 - PLANETARY ALIGNMENT ANIMATION - JPL LIVE TELEVISION EVENTS THIS WEEK ***************************** NEWS RELEASES LOST AND FOUND: HUBBLE FINDS MUCH OF THE UNIVERSE'S MISSING HYDROGEN For the past decade astronomers have looked for vast quantities of hydrogen that were cooked-up in the Big Bang but somehow managed to disappear into the empty blackness of space. Now, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered this long-sought missing hydrogen. It accounts for nearly half of the "normal" matter in the universe -- the rest is locked up in myriad galaxies. Astronomers believe at least 90 percent of the matter in the universe is hidden in exotic "dark" form that has not yet been seen directly. But more embarrassing is that, until now, they have not been able to see most of the universe's ordinary, or baryonic, matter (normal protons, electrons and neutrons). The confirmation of this missing hydrogen will shed new light on the large-scale structure of the universe. The detection also confirms fundamental models of how much hydrogen was manufactured in the first few minutes of the universe's birth in the Big Bang. Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Donald Savage (Phone 202/358-1547). Contact at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD: Nancy Neal (Phone 301/286-0039). Contact at Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD: Ray Villard (Phone 410/338-4707). For full text, see: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-072.txt ---------------------------- NASA HONORS STUDENT WINNERS Are there quakes on Mars? What¹s up with orbital debris? Does fire rejuvenate the landscape? Students nationwide tackled these and many other questions as part of the NASA Student Involvement Program (NSIP) academic competition. Forty-one high school students and 20 teachers from around the country have won an all- expense-paid trip to Washington, DC, for national recognition in the NASA Student Involvement Program. The students and their winning projects will be presented at the NSIP Symposium on Monday, May 8, at the Marriott at Metro Center, 775 12th Street, NW, Washington, DC. All program events will be open to the press. The symposium will feature presentations of the winning entries in each of the following competition areas: Designing a Mission to Mars; Watching Earth Change; and Aeronautics and Space Science Journalism. Students and NASA scientists will discuss issues raised by each of the winning teams. Contact at NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Sonja Alexander (Phone 202/358-1761). For full text, see: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-071.txt ---------------------------- If NASA issues any news releases later today, we will e- mail summaries and Internet URLs to this list. Index of 2000 NASA News Releases: http://www.nasa.gov/releases/2000/index.html Index of 1999 NASA News Releases: http://www.nasa.gov/releases/1999/index.html ***************************** VIDEO LIVE TELEVISION COMING UP THIS WEEK May 3, Wednesday - 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. - Planetary Alignment Live News Interviews - JPL May 11, Thursday - 6:00 - 10:00 a.m. - Interstellar Transportation Live News Interviews - MSFC - 1:00 p.m. - Chandra Space Science Update - HQ May 12, Friday - 1:00 - 5:00 p.m. - Satellite Adjustment and Maintenance at all NASA uplink sites - All Centers ----------------------------- Unless otherwise noted, ALL TIMES ARE EASTERN. ANY CHANGES TO THE VIDEO LINE-UP WILL APPEAR ON THE NASA VIDEO FILE ADVISORY ON THE WEB AT ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/tv-advisory/nasa-tv.txt WE UPDATE THE ADVISORY THROUGHOUT THE DAY. The NASA Video File normally airs at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., 9 p.m. and midnight Eastern Time. NASA Television is available on GE-2, transponder 9C at 85 degrees West longitude, with vertical polarization. Frequency is on 3880.0 megahertz, with audio on 6.8 megahertz. Refer general questions about the video file to NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC: Ray Castillo, 202/358-4555, or Fred Brown, 202/358-0713, fred.brown@hq.nasa.gov During Space Shuttle missions, the full NASA TV schedule will continue to be posted at: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/nasatv/schedule.html For general information about NASA TV see: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv/ ***************************** Contract Awards Contract awards are posted to the NASA Acquisition information Service Web site: http://procurement.nasa.gov/EPS/award.html ***************************** The NASA Daily News Summary is issued each business day at approximately 2 p.m. Eastern time. Members of the media who wish to subscribe or unsubscribe from this list, please send e-mail message to: Brian.Dunbar@hq.nasa.gov ***************************** end of daily news summary