Archive for January, 2012

Another Aurora Alert – This Time for Jan 24th

Earth’s magnetic field reverberated from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) impact during the early hours of Jan. 22nd. The hit compressed Earth’s magnetic field, briefly exposing some geosynchronous satellites to solar wind plasma, and disturbed the ionization structure of Earth’s upper atmosphere.

As night fell on Jan. 22nd, Arctic sky …

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Possible Auroras This Weekend

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.

Forecasters say strong geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives during the late hours …

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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.

Using a precision formation-flying …

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BBC “Stargazing” Viewer Discovers an Exoplanet

Members of the public are being asked to join the hunt for nearby planets that could support life.

Volunteers can go to the Planethunters website to see time-lapsed images of 150,000 stars, taken by the Kepler space telescope.

They will be advised on the signs that indicate the presence of …

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A New View of the Eagle Nebula as Never Seen Before

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.

Combining almost opposite ends of the electromagnetic spectrum, this …

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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.

“Planck has been a wonderful mission; spacecraft and instruments have been performing …

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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.

A composite image shows El Gordo in X-ray light from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in blue, along with optical data …

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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.

In a random sky survey made in near-infrared light, Hubble found five tiny galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion …

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Preview of 2012 European Space Agency Missions

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

André Kuipers continues his PromISSe mission aboard the International Space Station until May, the fourth ESA long duration mission. During his stay the third European ATV cargo ship will bring food and supplies to the orbital …

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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.

RXTE sent data from its last science observation to the ground early on Jan. 4. After …

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