Earlier this month, ESA’s Mars Express performed a special manoeuvre to observe an unusual alignment of Jupiter and the martian moon Phobos. The impressive images have now been processed into a movie of this rare event.
At the moment when Mars Express, Phobos, and Jupiter aligned on 1Â June 2011, there was a distance of 11Â 389 km between the … Read the rest of this article
Tonight, June 15th, there’s going to be a total lunar eclipse that’s visible from every continent except North America (sorry guys!). The Moon will spend 100 minutes fully engulfed in Earth’s shadow, making this the longest lunar eclipse in nearly 11 years. The appearance of the eclipse might be affected by exhaust from Chile’s erupting Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano, which is … Read the rest of this article
On 8 June, mission controllers had the first opportunity to switch ESA’s Rosetta comet-hunter into deep-space hibernation for 31 months. During this loneliest leg of its decade-long mission, Rosetta will loop ever closer toward comet 67-P, soaring to almost 1000 million km from Earth.
Marking one of the most dramatic and distant … Read the rest of this article
ESA and NASA have announced the scientific investigations selected for their 2016 ExoMars lander demonstrator. They will probe the atmosphere during the descent, and return the first ever data on electrical fields at the surface of Mars.
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An artist’s impression of the ESA/NASA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The orbiter will carry a European entry, descent and landing demonstrator vehicle. Credits: …
NASA’s Voyager probes are truly going where no one has gone before. Gliding silently toward the stars, 9 billion miles from Earth, they are beaming back news from the most distant, unexplored reaches of the solar system.
Mission scientists say the probes have just sent back some very big news indeed.
It’s bubbly out there.
“The Voyager probes appear to … Read the rest of this article
Yesterday morning (June 7th) around 06:41 UT, magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1226-1227 became unstable and erupted. The blast produced an M2-class solar flare, an S1-class radiation storm, and a massive CME. A recording of the blast from NASA’s solar Dynamics Observatory ranks as one of the most beautiful and dramatic movies of the SDO era. This video of the … Read the rest of this article
ESA’s Mars Express celebrates eight years in space with a new view of ice in the southern polar region of Mars. The poles are closely linked to the planet’s climate and constantly change with the seasons. Their study is an important scientific objective of the mission.
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Ulyxis Rupes in context |
About two-thirds of the image is covered by part of … Read the rest of this article
New Version 3.35 Now Available
http://www.lunarphasepro.com
Not just an interactive Moon Atlas, LunarPhase Pro (for Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Win 7/Win 8) is a moon observer’s software toolkit designed to help you learn about the Moon and make your lunar observing sessions more productive. By using the integrated observation planning tools and the general lunar data presented on screen, you’ll be able to easily … Read the rest of this article
The 2011 noctilucent cloud (NLC) season has begun. For the past few nights, observers in northern parts of Europe have spotted velvety, electric-blue tendrils rippling across the sunset sky. NLCs are a summertime phenomenon first reported by polar observers in the 19th century. In recent decades, for reasons no one fully understands, the clouds have intensified and spread … Read the rest of this article
A team of NASA-funded researchers has measured for the first time water from the Moon in the form of tiny globules of molten rock, which have turned to glass-like material trapped within crystals. Data from these newly discovered lunar melt inclusions indicate the water content of lunar magma is 100 times higher than previous studies suggested.
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This microscope photo shows …
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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