Amateur Astronomy And Space Exploration News

Welcome to the Night Sky Observer (NSO) astronomy and space news website. Most pages (especially news, podcasts and vodcasts) 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 right) will let you navigate around the website.

On this site, you'll also find software products I've created (such as LunarPhase Pro and Jupsat Pro) and links to some of the best suppliers of astronomical gear and space-related memorabilia on the navigation bar.

If you would like to submit an article, please use the Contact page. Articles can contain up to 3 links.

Gary Nugent

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For more News, visit:
Astronomy & Space News

Announcements:
Older announcements are listed here [older part of site]

January 23: Big sunspot 1402 erupted today, Jan. 23rd, producing a strong M9-class solar flare and a fast-moving coronal mass ejection. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the CME should reach Earth tomorrow afternoon. Keep an eye out for auroras over the next few nights.

January 20: Active sunspot 1401 erupted yesterday, Jan. 19th, for more than an hour around 16:00 UT. The long-duration blast produced an M3-class solar flare and a Coronal Mass Ejection that appears to be heading toward Earth. Watch out for auroras during the weekend.

January 19: Twin NASA spacecraft that achieved orbit around the Moon New Year's Eve and New Year's Day have new names, thanks to elementary students in Bozeman, Mont. Their winning entry, "Ebb and Flow," was selected as part of a nationwide school contest that began in October 2011.

January 19: Members of the public are being asked to join the hunt for nearby planets that could support life. Volunteers can check time-lapsed images of 150,000 stars, taken by the Kepler space telescope. A BBC viewer found such a planet yesterday!.

January 19: In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope's 'Pillars of Creation' image of the Eagle Nebula became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. Now, two of ESA's orbiting observatories have shed new light on this enigmatic star-forming region.

January 16: The High Frequency Instrument on ESA's Planck mission has completed its survey of the remnant light from the Big Bang. The sensor ran out of coolant on Saturday as expected, ending its ability to detect this faint energy.

January 12: An exceptional galaxy cluster, the largest seen in the distant universe, has been found using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation-funded Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile.

January 11: Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have uncovered a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of development. It is the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early universe.

January 11: This video presents the key events in 2012 for the European Space Agency (ESA).

January 9: After 16 years in space, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) has made its last observation. The satellite provided unprecedented views into the extreme environments around white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.

January 3: The annual Quadrantid meteor shower peaks on Wednesday morning, Jan. 4th, when Earth passes through a narrow stream of debris from a comet thought to have broken apart some 500 years ago.

January 3: The second of NASA's two Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft has successfully completed its planned main engine burn and is now in lunar orbit. Working together, GRAIL-A and GRAIL-B will study the Moon as never before.

Astronomy & Space News For July 2011

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