WASHINGTON: The recent attempt from NASA to bomb moon surface in search of water has failed to achieve success as the dust appeared with the blow of rocket did not carry possible water vapors.After gearing up for the space agency's much-hyped mission to hurl two spacecraft into the moon, the public turned away from the sky Friday anything but dazzled. Photos and video of the impact showed little more than a fuzzy white flash. In social media and live television coverage, many people were disappointed at the lack of spectacle. One person even joked that someone hit the pause button in mission control.Yet scientists involved in the project were downright gleeful. Sure, there were no immediate pictures of spewing plumes of lunar dust that could contain water, but, they say, there was something more important: chemical signatures in light waves. That's the real bonanza, not pictures of geyser-like eruptions of debris, the scientists said.The mission was executed for “a scientific purpose, not to put on a fireworks display for the public,'' said space consultant Alan Stern, a former NASA associate administrator for science.Scientists said the public expected too much. The public groused as if NASA delivered too little. The divide was as big as a crater. “We've been brainwashed by Hollywood to expect the money shot, like 'Deep Impact' or when Bruce Willis saves us from a comet,’ said physicist and television host Michio Kaku, who was not part of the mission. “Science is not done that way.'
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in...
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