Word: orbit
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...first time, astronomers confirm the discovery of a planet circling a star similar to our own. The planet is 160 times more massive than Earth; because its orbit takes the planet so close to its fiery sun in the constellation Pegasus, scientists are convinced that it could not sustain life. Even so, the discovery bolsters theories that other worlds harboring life may indeed exist...
Captain Kirk never seemed to mind outer space. But before NORMAN THAGARD, left, with cosmonauts, returned from 115 days in orbit on Russia's Mir space station, he had some things he wanted to get off his chest. First, the food was only so-so (tinned perch was a staple). Then there was the lack of news from home. "The cultural isolation is extreme," griped Thagard, who referred to himself as a "lab rat." NASA officials said they have begun to look into the psychological effects of long-term missions in space, where people can indeed hear you complain...
Atlantis climbed quickly into a matching orbit with Mir and, over the next day or so, slowly closed a 4,000-mile gap with its target. Thursday morning, with the spacecraft 250 ft. apart and orbiting through space at 17,500 m.p.h., Gibson and shuttle pilot Charles Precourt began the delicate and risky maneuvers aimed at linking the two great ships. One careless burst of a thruster jet, and Mir's feathery solar panels could be destroyed; too forceful a bump from Atlantis, and either or both craft could be severely damaged. And if Gibson and Precourt couldn't align...
...begin a three-month stay on Mir--a record sojourn for an American, though nearly a year short of the Russian record. The current mission is, among other things, a ticket home for Thagard and his two Russian companions on Mir; in exchange, Solovyev and Budarin will stay in orbit to maintain Mir's nine-year record of continuous habitation when Atlantis returns to earth this week...
Graceful, charming, deliberate, Nelson Mandela is the sun whose gravity holds the disparate elements of South African society in peaceful orbit. As his country prepares to celebrate the anniversary of its first democratic elections, he permits Time the exclusive opportunity to spend a day with...