and welcome to the Night Sky Observer (NSO) astronomy and space news website. Most pages (especially news and podcasts) are updated several times a day.
There are many resources, news sources and headlines, articles, astro-photos and links on this site and the navigation bar (at left) will let you navigate around the website.
On this site, you'll also find software products I've created (mostly with amateur astronomers in mind) and links to some of the best suppliers of astronomical gear and space-related memorabilia on the navigation bar.
Announcements:
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Astronomy News: All the latest astronomy and space news updated hourly.
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September 1: The Space Store are we are featuring their End of Summer Clearance Event, with 30% off many popular products. |
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August 31: Dr. Paula Szkody (U. Washington) has requested the help of AAVSO observers in monitoring the WZ Sge-type cataclysmic variable V455 And in support of Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet spectroscopic observations scheduled for 6:55-15:20 2010 September 11 UT (the night of Friday, September 10/11).
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August 28: The host of Public Television's "Star Gazer" show, Jack Horkheimer aged 72, died on August 20, 2010, of a respiratory ailment.
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August 27: NASA's Kepler spacecraft has discovered the first
confirmed planetary system with more than one planet crossing in front of, or transiting, the same star.
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August 11: Astronomers are predicting a dazzling display of shooting stars on the night of August 12/13 as the Perseid meteor shower reaches a peak in activity. Venus, Saturn, Mars and the crescent Moon are in conjunction in the west as well.
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August 10: Aurora Alert - The solar eruption of August 7th might affect Earth after all. Newly-arriving data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show a CME heading our way with a significant Earth-directed component. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the cloud arrives on August 10th.
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August 2: During the early hours of August 1st, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a complex global disturbance on the Earth-facing side of the sun. Most of the sun's northern hemisphere was involved in the event, which included a long-duration C3-class solar flare, a "solar tsunami, " and a massive filament eruption. As a result of these blasts, a coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading toward Earth. High-latitude geomagnetic storms and auroras are possible when the cloud arrives in a few days.
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August 1: NASA mission controllers have not heard from Mars rover Spirit since March 22 as the rover faces its toughest challenge yet - trying to survive the harsh Martian winter.
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July 18: An observing campaign is being carried out on M31_V1, the first
variable star discovered in M31 by Edwin Hubble. Dr. John
Grunsfeld, Deputy Director of the Space Telescope Science
Institute, plans to observe M31_V1 with the Hubble Space
Telescope (HST), and needs to plan for the phase of this
Cepheid variable.
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July 18: NASA-funded researchers are monitoring big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.
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July 17: The first spacecraft designed by NASA to orbit Mercury
is giving scientists a new perspective on the planet's atmosphere and
evolution.
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July 16: Asteroid Lutetia has been revealed as a battered world of many craters. ESA's Rosetta mission has returned the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor from the violent birth of the Solar System.
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July 10: On Sunday, July 11th, the new Moon will pass directly in front of the sun, producing a total eclipse over the South Pacific. The path of totality stretches across more than a thousand miles of ocean, making landfall in the Cook Islands, Easter Island, a number of French Polynesian atolls, and the southern tip of South America.
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June 20: Halfway to Pluto, NASA's New Horizons probe has woken up in 'exotic territory.' Mission controllers are taking the opportunity to give the spacecraft a thorough system's check in preparation for its Pluto flyby in 2015.
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June 17: Detailed observations made by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have found an answer to the flash of light seen June 3 on Jupiter. It came from a giant meteor burning up high above Jupiter's cloud tops. The space visitor did not plunge deep enough into the atmosphere to explode and leave behind any telltale cloud of debris, as seen in previous Jupiter collisions.
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June 17: Using new data from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), researchers have finally uncovered the secrets of the troughs that snake through Mars' northern polar ice cap like a spiraled maze.
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June 16: NASA's Kepler Mission has released 43 days of science data on more than 156, 000 stars. These stars are being monitored for subtle brightness changes as part of an ongoing search for Earth-like planets outside of our solar system.
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June 7: The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and the next few years could bring much higher levels of solar activity. NASA is keeping a wary eye on the sun as officials meet in Washington DC on June 8th to discuss the potential consequences of stormy space weather.
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June 6: Will the discovery of extraterrstrial life be announced this year? Possible confirmation could come from two separate fronts...
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