spacetoday.net: News briefs: January 7

Posted: Tue, Jan 8, 2002, 9:48 AM ET (1448 GMT)

New NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe will begin an introductory tour of the agency's field centers this week with a visit Thursday to the Langley Research Center in Virginia, NASA announced Monday. O'Keefe will visit the Johnson Space Center next week, escorted by Rep. Tom Delay (R-TX), House Majority Whip, whose district is in the Houston area.
XM Satellite Radio announced Monday that it has signed up 30,000 subscribers since it began its digital satellite radio broadcast service in November. That figure includes 2,000 who signed up within the last week. The figure, though, it still far short of the four million subscribers the company says it needs to break even. In a related story, competitor Sirius Satellite Radio announced Monday that it has added Jackson, Mississippi to the list of cities where it roll out its broadcasts next month. Houston, Phoenix, and Denver were the three cities Sirius previously announced it would begin service.
The Sun will likely not engulf the Earth as it swells into a red giant billions of years from now, English astronomers recently concluded. The Sun will grow dramatically at the end of its life, billions of years from now, as it exhausts its supply of hydrogen. However, Sussex University researchers found that since the Sun will lose mass in the process, the Earth will spiral away from the Sun, keeping away from the Sun's expanding photosphere.