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Show The Salt Lake Tribune NATION/WORLD Friday, February 14, 1997 A7 Hubble Gets Tuneup in Cosmic Pit Stop ———————__ no aru damage and the walk began only 15 exacting orbital house call on the $2 billion Hubble Space Telescope late Thursday, culminating two years of painstaking rehearsals for one of the most demanding tasks in NASA's space program Steven Smith, perched on the end of spaceshuttle Discovery's crane, removed a 7-foot-long box from Hubble containing a speetrograph that by coincidence failed just a week ago. With partner Mark Lee guiding him, Smith gently slid in a more powerful instrument that will search for black holes and study newborn stars. The next step for Lee and Smith was to replace one of Hubble’s cameras with an advanced model that will peer into the infrared fringes of the universe. The spacewalk wasto end this morning. “Hubble wasbuilt to be serviced, andthisis a bit more exotic than getting a part replaced on your car but it’s similar in some respects becausethis is all part of routine maintenance,” said NASA spokes- manSteve Nesbitt. The spacewalk was delayed temporarily when Hubble’s right solar panel suddenly moved, apparently when air from theairlock hit it. But there was APRGK. 18 FT. 419° The crew of Discovery, parked in orbit 370 miles sorego INGLE ROLL APROX 3 9/7 A010 spacewalks during the weekendto complete a $350 million refurbishment of NASA's orbital eye, replacing vintage 1970s technology with thebest the 1990s ents he new equipment will ; yefos® ow BI in 1 . 7 planets are bornto the voracious black hol ing thehearts of manygalaxies. “We'resalivating,” we Realddie ' aids designed for the mission, the crewwill ratchet * raiky Riv Oe ony ; bag of newelectronics. The shuttle also will nudge the observatory into a slightlyhigher orbit. chian Mountains were thrust up. down. The much younger Rockies were created 30million years ago as North America crunched westAre on the Move }years tuallywill reach through the Red Sea to LakeBaikal in northernSiberia And, in coming years, Earth is ward over the huge slab lying un- almost certain to be struck by one or more monstrous aster- @ Continued from A-1 en CAS Beginning about 250 million ag0, the Pangean federation “There are hundreds, perha westat about the speed your fin. pened up between Europe and if they wereto strike our planet gernails grow. North America. The South Atlan- that at this very moment haveor- > ™@ Based on subterranean movei ie ed Rast es on auth America, leaving edgesthat stil erestenewi occa litearise in 163 , ae one the dinosaurs ae - out See eared Siberia. 65 million years ago, “the physical world looked much more a like toda: MacDougall says. Looking ahead, geologists Humans always have had cre- ation stories, but it took the discoveryin the 1960s of continental are not fixed but constantly mov- ing across the planet's hot plastic | i 67% : be eu cross the Earth’s,” Mac- say 3 \ AAI KX i |3) 3? 31 ence | FaRLSLIKEA CURTAIN SANDY MURRAY 561-1436 268-1981 ne a of the planet is a distant prospect SATURDAY 9AM TO 6PM remain active for hundreds of SUNDAY 11AM TO SPM. millions of years to come.” 9 WEST VALLEY 4n5-4616 972-8783 CENTERVILLE O49\W. poth 80, mAvarauc “The Earth,” SALT LAKE 980.89[socures) am so. ance seem. sence See |yowen: exw ro seme tinue to widen and deepen, until “will f) 67% =... of M6 OR MORE BLINDS IAREHOUSE Barth is doomed to die iniceor 'Tarling says, WALLPAPER WAREHOUSE WILL REFUND THE DIFFERENCE PLUS 10% @ LEVOLOR® MARK sumo ts But donot be alarmed. Even on VOCALLY FOR)LESS THEN YOU PAID WITHIN 30 DAYS OF PURCHASE 1 YALLPAPER says. And eventually, scientists say ire or both J » ALL DISCOUNIS OFF MANUFACTURES SUGGESTED RETAIL AND OR COMPETITORS NORMAL SELLING PRICE East Africa’s Rift Valley willcon— ° OFF PLUS A FREE VALANCE a geological timescale, the death the sea floods in about 5 million drift — the fact that land masses We LEVOLOR’ VERTICAL BLIN PELE pableof doing substantial damage Dougall Africa,researchers.Svedier's line up like jigsawpieces ; 4 even thousands, of asteroids c fromAfrica. The North Atlantic | again oids or comets slowly dissolved. Europesplit off still is oozing toward the north- 72% or BLINDS oR MORE fromnow. That will be the beginningof an oceanthat even- der the Pacific. <= LOWEST PRICE [FoR PEOPLE WHO INSIST ON THE BE into place a variety of other upgrades Saturday and Sunday, including protective lens caps and a grab Onceas high as the Rocky Moun- LEVOLOR x _GUARA NTEE > eee eee <x Spebey that the telescope canstay aimed properly Drawing from a collection of 150 tools and crew s 4 (INGLE ROLL OR SPOOL SAME VALUE said a University of Michiganstargazer. tains, they since have been worn Land Masses _\ = ders — fromthedensedust cloudsin which stars 194 PAGES LANE =< 0ST AMA 77M We = interior — to provide a scientific account of Earth's evolution. “The complex history of our planet has only become apparent to us over the last 30 years," Tarling writes. “Our Earth is a dynamie entity with a historyof turbu- lence, destruction, creation and upheaval.” Asscientists nowunderstandit, the third rock from the sun | | SAVINGS ON SELECTED formed quite rapidly about 4.6 billion years ago outof clouds of gas and dust In the beginning, it wasa fiery. fearsome place. Huge meteorites pummeled the planet. Voleanoes belched gas and steam. Ultraviolet rays scorched its skin. There was no permanent land or sea, no | oxygen, nolife But J.D. MacDougall, director of Earth sciences at the University of California, San Diego, be- lievesthefirst slivers of solid land congealed, like scattered slabs of ice on a pond, about 43 billion years ago. Most of these early micro-continents were smashed by meteors or sank intothe hot interior. The oldest surviving chunk of crust dating back 3.96 billion years, lies in the Slave Lake area of northwestern Canada As the Earth’s crust cooled,stable areascalled “cratons” formed and becamethe cores of future continents. Geologists have iden- tified ancient cratons in North India, Australia, Brazil, Africa andAntarctica In a research paper titled A History of Continents inthe Past 3 Billion Years, John Rogers, a geologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, speculates that most of these original cratons were — at one time — part ofa single, 3-billion-year-old continent, which he named Ur About 2.5 billion years ago, another slice of crust hardened into a second continent, which Rogers calls Arctica, that becamethe an cestor of Canada, Greenland and part of Siberia. Two more continents showed up 2 billion years ago: Baltica which produced most of Western Europe, and Atlantica, the foun. dation of western Africa and east ern South America. A half billion Baltica and Arctica + adeS years later, merged, forming —anacro- nym for “Northern Europe and North America Then, about abillion years ago. Ur andAtlantica joined Nena to produce a supercontinent, Ro dinia — after the Russian word for “motherland” — which lasted 300 million years before it drifted apart One chunk of Rodinia became what is known as Gondwanaland i giant land mass containing most ¢ southern continents — South America, Australia and Antarctica, The other ection becam urasia — North America, Greenland, Siberia Olga bras shapewear and Scoops” panties Features new Secret Shapers” with hidden bra inside Also, padded, full figure and petite bras with matching panties and control shapers. Bali classic packaged styl including Flower Ba Sno ind comfort cushion strap all control shapewear Baltica and About 300million years ago, all these territories stitched them selves back together again to cre ate Pangea, the ultimate super (7iC' MII continent, stretching from poleto pole. When parts of Africa and North America crashed together during this process, the Appala a K (SINGLE ROLL OR SPOOL AT BOOK RICE let astronomersstare with Later today, astronauts Gregory Harbaugh and Joseph Tanner planto replace afailing guidance sensor with an $8 million device designed to ensure WAREHOUSE YALLPAPER 18 DOUBLE ROLLS ONLY clearer, nore discerning eyes at a universe of won- i LEVOLOR® 2" WOODS The Drifters: 7 oto WALLCOVERING above Earth, will conduct three more midnight haste offer. BS nitineRer at “Oh mygosh. Beautiful!” Leesaid as he gazed at the 43-foot telescope. IN - COUPON- COUPON = COUPON - COUPON COMBINED NEWSSERVICES SPACE CENTER, Houston — As sleepless astron- omers held their breath, two astronauts began an Visit us on the Internet at www.zemicom 1 control shapewear Flake Sky Bal t tyles. Pl Bali pantie L ~ |