Talks for a gas pipeline from Bengal to Myanmar via Bangladesh are likely to be revived as Dhaka has renewed its interest.

However, the pipeline is unlikely to figure in the agenda of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during her first visit to India next month after being elected with an overwhelming mandate in December 2008, a leading English daily “The Telegraph” said in a recent report.

Telegraph said, during her visit, Hasina is expected to wrest some trade concessions as well as ink a transit deal that will give Bangladesh access to Nepal and Bhutan by road and rail, while opening up the port of Ashuganj for Indian goods meant for the Northeast.

In the project, gas produced by Indian Public Sector Units in Myanmar will be transported to India, and the negotiations will be tri- partite.

After years of stalling on negotiations, the Bangladesh government, which does not enjoy the best of relations with Myanmar, has sent signals of its willingness to talk business - it will allow the pipeline in return for a royalty in hard currency for giving passage, the report further said.

The pipeline could cost India about $600 million, of which 60 per cent would be invested in Bangladesh. The South Asian nation would also earn nearly $100 million as carrier fee every year.

Officials said, the talks, which are still to take off, did not envisage the evacuation of Bangladesh’s gas to India.

“We are very clear that India only wants to evacuate gas from the gas fields in Myanmar through Arakan, Bangladesh and into Bengal to feed industry in eastern and northern India. We have no plans to seek gas from Bangladesh. Rather, Bangladesh could, if it so desires, buy excess gas from our fields.”

Opposition legislators of Bangladesh are against sales to India. In January 2005, energy ministers of the three countries had met in Yangon to discuss the construction of the pipeline, with a total length of 950km, and signed a draft memorandum of understanding.

The pipeline was expected to enter Bangladesh at the Brahmanbaria border and Bengal from Rajshahi.

Officials said, the pipeline could help evacuate gas from the Shwe gasfields as well as from new finds, in which Indian firms participate.

In June, ONGC Videsh Ltd, GAIL (India) Limited and South Korea’s Daewoo had announced the discovery of a huge field in Block A-3, offshore Myanmar.

Space shuttle Endeavour and a crew of seven astronauts touched down at 10:48 a.m. EDT at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, bringing an end to a complex mission to install the final section of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Kibo laboratory on the International Space Station. All of the STS-127 crew members are doing well after today’s landing.

The 16-day mission showcased the international partnerships involved in the space station effort. Astronauts from five space agencies were on board the orbiting complex. “It was truly an impressive demonstration of international collaboration all throughout this mission,” said Canadian Space Agency Director General of Operations Benoit Marcotte.

Endeavour’s smooth and punctual arrival, after more than two weeks in orbit, set off a steady stream of congratulations and an ecstatic welcoming reception for Koichi Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut to return from a long space journey. His space station mission lasted 4 1/2 months.

“We certainly miss being there, but there’s no place like home,” said shuttle commander Mark Polansky. He looked thrilled as he shook hands with senior managers and walked around his spaceship. “What a fantastic mission,” he said.

While visiting the space station, Polansky and his crew put on a new addition to Japan’s $1 billion lab, installed fresh batteries, and stockpiled some big spare parts. They accomplished all of their major objectives and were part of the biggest gathering ever in space: Counting the six station residents, the crowd totaled 13.

The shuttle flight lasted 16 days and spanned 6.5 million miles, one of NASA’s longest. It wrapped up a 138-day trip for Wakata, who moved into the space station last March. He swapped places with American Timothy Kopra, who rode up on Endeavour.

Source: Yahoo, Nasa

We live on Earth, which orbits the sun. Our sun is really a star, one of the hundreds of billions in our galaxy, the Milky Way. Our galaxy has a few galactic neighbors, and together we’re called the Local Group. Until recently, scientists thought that our beloved galaxy was about half as massive as Andromeda, a nearby galaxy in the Local Group. They also thought the Milky Way was spinning slower than our neighbors.

Just as it’s difficult to tell how large the ocean is when you’re in the middle of it floating on a raft, scientists have been mistaken about the size of the Milky Way. Based on new information, astronomers — scientists who study the universe — have produced a new map of the Milky Way. It turns out our galaxy is about 50 percent more massive and spinning about 100,000 miles per hour faster than scientists thought. These two measurements are connected: The more mass a galaxy has, the faster it spins.

Our galaxy, far from being the littlest member of the Local Group, is actually one of the fastest-spinning and most massive. The new study suggests that our galaxy has as much mass as roughly 3 trillion suns, That’s about as hefty as Andromeda, which the Milky Way now ties with as the largest member of the Local Group. The new measurements also mean that these two galaxies will smash into each other earlier than astronomers thought. (But don’t worry — that’s not for a long, long time.)

The new study also turned up surprising findings about the shape of the Milky Way. Astronomers found that our galaxy has four arms. Two of them contain all kinds of stars (like the sun), and two of them contain only newborn stars. The researchers were also able to count how many times each arm wound around the galaxy’s center.

To study the Milky Way, astronomers led by Mark Reid of Harvard University used an unusual type of telescope called a radio telescope. Instead of looking into the sky for visible light — like we see in the night sky — these telescopes measure the radio waves that move through space. On Earth, we use radio waves to send information through the air. In space, however, cosmic objects also send out radio waves, though they tend to be spaced much closer together than the radio waves we use on Earth.

When astronomers use light telescopes, they can’t see through thick layers of dust in space. But when they use radio telescopes, dust isn’t a problem, and astronomers can “hear” what’s going on in space. In this study, astronomers listened to regions of the galaxy where the radio waves were amplified, or increased, by clouds of methanol gas. By measuring how fast the sources of these waves moved through the sky, scientists were able to calculate the speed of the galaxy. And from the speed, they were able to better estimate the galaxy’s mass.

The new, more accurate map of our galaxy may lead to a new understanding of it. A more accurate mass will give scientists clues about how our galaxy has changed over time. But some astronomers say that more research needs to be done before we’re sure what, exactly, the Milky Way looks like.

View more pictures of Milkyway at Photo Gallery