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• Saturnian moon has more energy than Earth's oil and gas reserves

  - 2008-02-13

  PARIS AFP — Imagine a place awash with more hydrocarbons than a Texan oilman can dream of and where no one has staked a single claim -- all that energy is just going begging. The problem: this massive reserve is at least 1.2 billion kilometers (750 million miles) away...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, European Space Agency, Manufacturing

• Europe's Rosetta probe completes key fly-by of Earth

  - 2007-11-14

  PARIS AFP — Europe's comet-chasing probe Rosetta has completed a crucial fly-by of Earth to pick up speed on a 10-year mission to rendezvous with a distant comet, the European Space Agency ESA said on Wednesday. "An important milestone has just been accomplished," the Paris-based agency said after the...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, European Space Agency, HARDWARE, kilometer, MARKETING, Paris, Robots, Scanners

• Europe set for billion-euro gamble with comet-chasing probe

  - 2007-02-23

  PARIS AFP — A European comet-chasing spacecraft is set for a nail-biting close encounter this weekend with Mars. The billion-euro (1.3-billion-dollar) probe Rosetta will come within 250 kilometers (156 miles) of the Red Planet's surface, using Martian gravity to correct its course in one of the longest and costliest...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, Engineering, European Space Agency, kilometer, spacecraft

• Space plane in test run for zero-gravity surgery

  - 2006-09-24

  BORDEAUX, France AFP — Harnessed to the walls, their surgical tools moored down with magnets, a team of French doctors are Wednesday to attempt the world's first human operation in zero-gravity, as a test run for performing surgery in space. The aircraft enabling the pioneering operation is Zero-G, a plane...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, European Space Agency, France, magnet, PRODUCTIVITY, surgeon, surgery, team, tool

• Saturn's moon Titan looks like a primitive Earth

  - 2005-11-30

  PARIS AFP — A historic mission to Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has revealed a chemical hell of great complexity which somewhat resembles the forces that helped sculpt the infant Earth, scientists said. In its parachute-braked descent to Titan's surface on January 14, the European Space Agency ESA probe Huygens...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, carbon, Earth, European Space Agency, kilometer, river, Saturn, Titan

• Venus Express set for liftoff

  - 2005-10-18

  PARIS AFP — Venus Express, the European Space Agency's first mission to explore Earth's closest neighbour, will be launched next Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The ESA gave the prospective launch time as 0443 GMT. The 1.27-tonne unmanned spacecraft, which will be taken aloft by a...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, European Space Agency, Kazakhstan

• European probe sniffs out a site for lunar outpost

  - 2005-09-06

  CAMBRIDGE, England AFP — An experimental European probe has spotted a tiny area on the Moon that could be a promising site to set up a future manned outpost, a mission scientist revealed. Measuring "just a few square kilometers miles across" and located near the Moon's North Pole, the...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Cambridge, Earth, European Space Agency, kilometer, NETWORKING, sunlight

• Irish project aims to bring art to space, and space to Earth

  - 2005-08-28

  DUBLIN AFP — Space Synapse, an Irish project at the cutting edge of both art and scientific research, wants to install an interactive work of art on board the International Space Station within the next two years. Its aim -- to give the world a means of communicating with...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, European Space Agency, spacecraft

• 'Frozen lake' found on Mars, may have preserved primitive life: scientists

  - 2005-03-16

  PARIS AFP — Claims that life or the potential for it exists on Mars were boosted when scientists declared they saw the remains of a frozen sea on the planet's surface and speculated the ice may hold preserved organisms. Planetary geologists led by John Murray of Britain's Open University...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, European Space Agency, scientist

• Heads up, it's Europe's comet-chaser

  - 2005-03-03

  PARIS AFP — Weather permitting, European astronomers should get a good view of Rosetta, a spacecraft designed to rendezvous with a comet in deep space in one of the most ambitious ventures in space exploration. The billion-euro (1.3-billion-dollar) craft, launched just over a year ago, will be passing overhead...

  Tags: Agence France-Presse, Earth, Europe, European Space Agency, kilometer, Robots, spacecraft, Sun Microsystems Inc.