Heath Ledger only Latest in Young Hollywood Tragedies

A postmortem on the system of actor Heath Ledger proved equivocal on Wednesday, a day after the Brokeback Mountain superstar was establish asleep inside his Manhattan flat. Toxicology reports won't be accessible for at least 10 days. Prescription sleeping pills and anti-anxiety pills were establish in the house, and police said the death appeared to be inadvertent. Ledger's premature death at 28 is drawing ghoulish comparisons to new actors who died in their 20s. Among them, James Dean, who died at 24 on Sept. 30, 1955, after an automobile wreck near Paso Robles, Calif. , and almost newly, player Brad Renfro, 25, who died Jan. 15, after reportedly spending the night before drinking with friends.

The following are some new Hollywood twenty somethings who went before their moment.

• Sharon Tate, 26, was nine months pregnant when she was murdered Aug. 9, 1969, by followers of Charles Manson in Los Angeles. The "Valley of the Dolls" superstar would get turned 65 today.

• Freddie Prinze, 22, died Jan. 29, 1977, after shooting himself in Los Angeles. His boy, player Freddie Prinze Jr. , was 10 months older at the moment.

• Jon-Erik Hexum, 26, died Oct. 18, 1984, after shooting himself with a prop artillery in Los Angeles during filming of the TV series Cover Up. He was at the moment considered to be Hollywood's Next Big Thing.

• Rebecca Schaeffer, 21, who co-starred with Pam Dawber (Mork and Mindy) on the sitcom My Sister Sam, was murdered July 18, 1989, by a stalker in L. A. , prompting the country of California to enact anti-stalking laws.

• Brandon Lee, 28, died March 31, 1993, after unintentionally being shot with a prop artillery on the lot of The Crow in Wilmington, N. C. He was the boy of martial arts superstar Bruce Lee.

• River Phoenix, 23, died Oct. 31, 1993, from a drug overdose outside a club in Los Angeles.

• Jonathan Brandis, 27, who starred in Steven Spielberg's TV series SeaQuest DSV, died Nov. 12, 2003, after hanging himself in Los Angeles.

Heath Ledger Anxious About Matilda At Xmas - Gemma Ward

AT Christmas Heath Ledger swore away alcohol amid a round of anxiety caused by being incapable to view his girl, according to the baby of supermodel Gemma Ward, with whom he was reportedly romantically linked.

But the Perth example Sophie Ward said she did not think he had a trouble with drugs. She said Ledger, who was establish asleep in New York yesterday after a suspected sleeping tablet overdose, did not drink any alcohol during several nights away in Perth. "He was spotless and wasn't drinking any alcohol or taking drugs," Ms Ward told The West Australian paper. "He smoked cigarettes, but that's about it. He was drinking diet Coke when we were jointly and he said he was really committed to not drinking alcohol.

"I don't think he took his own living intentionally." But Ms Ward said Ledger was troubled about his schism with Michelle Williams and being off from his two-year-old girl, Matilda. "We went to the movies and just did natural material. but he was a piece jittery. He couldn't truly loosen," Ms Ward said." He said he was going to London but was rather disturb because he couldn't view his girl as often as he'd like to. "He was travelling then often and I believe he was just frustrated with it all."

Asteroid TU24 to pass within 334,000 miles of Earth on Jan 29

Washington, Jan 24 (ANI): Astronomers will have an opportunity to have a good feel at an asteroid, referred to as 2007 TU24, which will near Earth to within 334,000 miles on January 29, 2008. Discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on October 11, 2007, the asteroid is between 150 and 600 meters in diameter, and will hit an approximate obvious ratio 10. 3 on Jan 29, before rapidly becoming fainter as it moves farther from Earth. Astronomers and enthusiastic place watchers would be capable to respect this asteroid for a short moment in blue and clear-cut skies with amateur telescopes of 3-inch apertures or larger. Given the estimated amount of near-Earth asteroids of this size (about 7,000 discovered and unexplored objects), a target of this size would be expected to give this closing to Earth, on average, about every 5 years or then.

2007 TU24 will be the closest presently known access by a possibly dangerous asteroid of this size or larger until 2027. But though the average interval between real Earth impacts for a target of this size would be about 37,000 years, asteroid 2007 TU24, in spite of being near Earth, has no opportunity of hitting, or affecting the planet. Plans have been made for the Goldstone global radar to respect this target on Jan 23-24 and for the Arecibo radar to respect it on Jan 27-28 and so Feb 1-4. High-resolution radar imagery is expected, which may allow late 3-D form reconstruction. (ANI)

Virgin Galactic Unveils Space-Plane Model

NEW YORK — A select group of wealthy tourists may be blasting into place within a few years in a craft that looks like a cross between a joint jet and something out of skill fable. British billionaire Richard Branson and the aerospace architect Burt Rutan unveiled an example Wednesday of SpaceShipTwo, the vehicle they hope will be capable to go passengers about 62 miles above Earth for the humor of it, with examination flights perhaps beginning this year. "Breathtakingly lovely" was Branson's appraisal of the ship being built in the Mojave Desert. At the American Museum of Natural History, the couple too showed away an example of the four-engine jet that will assist establish the craft into place. The twin-fuselage plane, the White Knight Two, will transport SpaceShipTwo into the sky beneath an unmarried 140-foot wing.

The spacecraft, with brief wings, a couple of rotating tails and lot of 18-inch portholes, would so divide from the airplane and projectile into place, where upward to six passengers and two crowd members could unbuckle themselves and have weightlessness before gliding backwards to Earth. Will Whitehorn, president of Branson's space-tourism party, Virgin Galactic, said building on the White Knight Two is much than 70 percentage comprehensive. Virgin Galactic, an outgrowth of Virgin Atlantic airlines, is the merchandise of a multimillion-dollar trade between Branson and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who bankrolled the prototype personal spaceship, SpaceShipOne. SpaceShipTwo is about 60 percentage comprehensive, and the party and Rutan's aerospace outfit, Scaled Composites, hope to start examination flights this summertime. About 200 potential passengers from 30 countries have made reservations, shelling away $200,000 apiece. The main work for the designers will be confirming that the empirical.

Mystery Of Red Planet Picture - Man Or Alien On Mars?

It's the image that ET believers have been waiting for - and the one that shows there could be living on Mars. The picture, taken by Nasa's Mars Explorer Spirit, seems to indicate a number on the surface of the crimson planet. However the much skeptical have decided that it is just a stone. At best astronomers were disappointed with pictures sent backwards from the surface of the Red Planet by the six-wheel robot four years ago. But a place lover spotted the number, which was just a pinprick in the new photo. It was blown upward and posted on a website. One astronomer writes on the place: "My best idea - it's Big Foot! If you indicate me another stone in another photograph from Mars or Earth that naturally looks like that, I will reconsider. " Another said: "I couldn't think my eyes when I looked and saw what appears to be a nude foreigner running about on Mars. " Experts tell that if the planet formerly had surface water, there was the potentiality to back living.

Analysis of land showed it contained 90Analysis of land showed it contained 90% silica - a density simply possible to get formed when water is existing. But as to whether there are possible to be aliens moving around, view is understandably divided. ilica - a density simply possible to get formed when water is existing. But as to whether there are possible to be aliens moving around, view is understandably divided.