September 2014

Darwin's Children by Greg Bear

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The novel “Darwin’s Children” by Greg Bear was published for the first time in 2003. It’s the sequel to “Darwin’s Radio”.

Mitch Rafelson and his wife Kaye Lang live underground with their daughter Stella Nova to prevent her from being interned in a special school opened fro the children born after the activation of a endovirus which led to an evolutionary leap. Very few cases of diseases transmitted from the children to the common homo sapiens caused a psychosis, skillfully exploited by many governments to establish a police state.

In the USA, democracy no longer exists and Washington is a land of tough power struggles also affected by occasional terrorist attacks. With a forceful action, it’s decided to capture Stella Nova and frame Mitch to put him in jail. Kaye can only resume her biological research to show that the new children are the future of humanity hoping that she could one day reunite with her husband and daughter.

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John Kilian Houston Brunner was born on September 24, 1934 in Preston Crowmarsh, near Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England. During his career he wrote a lot of novels and short fiction, especially science fiction and occasionally fantasy. His most famous novels are: “Stand on Zanzibar” (1968), winner of the Hugo BSFA awards, “The Jagged Orbit (1969) and “The Sheep Look Up” (1972).

Artists concept of the Indian space probe Mangalyaan, officially called the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) in Mars orbit (Credit Nesnad)

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ISRO, the Indian Space Agency, has confirmed that the Indian space probe Mangalyaan, officially called the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), has entered the orbit of Mars. The thrusters of the spacecraft were switched on for 24 minutes to slow it down at the right speed to get into an elliptical orbit with a period of 3.2 days.

The maneuvers performed by the MAVEN space probe to enter Mars orbit (Image NASA / GSFC / LASP)

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The MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) space probe, launched on November 18, 2013, successfully entered Mars orbit a few hours ago. The spacecraft thrusters performed a 33 minutes burn to slow it down to the right speed to get into an elliptical orbit with a period of 35 hours.

Now a period of six weeks starts in which MAVEN will be programmed for further orbital correction maneuvers and to test its instruments. Subsequently, it will begin its primary mission to study the Martian atmosphere.