On Monday, Jan. 14, a pioneering NASA spacecraft was the first to visit Mercury in almost 33 years when it soared over the planet to explore and snap close-up images of never-before-seen terrain. These findings could open new theories and answer old questions in the study of the solar system.
The MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging spacecraft, called … Read the rest of this article
Jan. 26, 2010: After six years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit no longer will be a fully mobile robot. NASA has designated the once-roving scientific explorer a stationary science platform after efforts during the past several months to free it from a sand trap have been unsuccessful.
The venerable robot’s primary task in … Read the rest of this article
It rises in the east at sunset, pumpkin-orange and brighter than a first magnitude star. You stare at it, unblinking. Unblinking, it stares right back.
It is Mars.
This week Earth and Mars are having a close encounter. On Jan. 27th, the Red Planet will be only 99 million kilometers away and look bigger through a telescope than at any … Read the rest of this article
The Moon is about to pass directly in front of the sun, producing an annular solar eclipse on Jan. 15th between 05:00 and 09:00 GMT.
The zone of visibility stretches from Africa across the Indian Ocean to eastern Asia.
Onlookers in those places should be alert for crescent-shaped shadows on the ground and “ring of fire” suns in the sky.… Read the rest of this article
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January 14, 2010: The premiere observatory of the next decade, the James Webb Space Telescope, will launch in 2014 in search of “big game”–namely, the first stars and galaxies ever formed in our Universe. But the “little game” could turn out to be just as interesting. There’s a dawning awareness among … Read the rest of this article
A curious object is about to fly past Earth only one-third the distance to the Moon.
Cataloged as a 10m-class asteroid, 2010 AL30 has an orbital period of almost exactly 1 year. This raises the possibility that it might not be a natural object, but rather a piece of some spacecraft from our own planet.
At closest approach on Jan. … Read the rest of this article
This striking image taken by NASA’s Terra satellite on 7 January shows the UK deep in the clutches of the current cold snap. While the UK is completely white, Ireland, at least the half you can is still green. On the ground it’s a different story. Dublin has been affected by the snow for the past couple of days. And … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Kepler space telescope, designed to find Earth-size planets in the habitable zone of sun-like stars, has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system.
Kepler’s high sensitivity to both small and large planets enabled the discovery of the exoplanets, named Kepler 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b and 8b. The discoveries were announced Monday, Jan. 4, by … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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Aurora Oval
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