Archive for March, 2012

Curiosity Rover to Land Near Mount Sharp on Mars in August 2012

Thursday, March 29th, 2012 at 2:39 pm  
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One particular mountain on Mars, bigger than Colorado’s grandest, has been beckoning would-be explorers since it was first sighted from orbit in the 1970s. Scientists have ideas about how it took shape in the middle of ancient Gale Crater and hopes for what evidence it could yield about whether …

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Night Sky Observer Has Moved to a New Webserver

Thursday, March 29th, 2012 at 11:49 am  
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You may have noticed that the Night Sky Observer was offline earlier this week. That’s because the webhost I was with was having capacity problems and I had to move the site to a new webhost. Not an easy task given that this site is 15 years old and has …

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Are Microbes Raining Down on Enceladus?

Thursday, March 29th, 2012 at 10:39 am  
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There’s a tiny moon orbiting beyond Saturn’s rings that’s full of promise, and maybe — just maybe — microbes.

In a series of tantalizingly close flybys to the moon, named “Enceladus,” NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has revealed watery jets erupting from what may be a vast underground sea. These jets, …

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Swift Satellite Provides New Insights Into Origins of Type Ia Supernovae

Friday, March 23rd, 2012 at 5:02 pm  
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Studies using X-ray and ultraviolet observations from NASA’s Swift satellite provide new insights into the elusive origins of an important class of exploding star called Type Ia supernovae.

Three types of systems, illustrated here, may host Type Ia supernovae. The first two panels depict a white dwarf in a …

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New Surface Features Spotted on Giant Asteroid Vesta by NASA Dawn Spacecraft

Friday, March 23rd, 2012 at 4:25 pm  
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NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data highlight the diversity of Vesta’s surface and reveal unusual geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on asteroids.

In this image from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, bright material extends out …

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Mysterious Objects at the Edge of the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 at 5:10 pm  
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The human eye is crucial to astronomy. Without the ability to see, the luminous universe of stars, planets and galaxies would be closed to us, unknown forever. Nevertheless, astronomers cannot shake their fascination with the invisible.

Outside the realm of human vision is an entire electromagnetic spectrum of wonders. …

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Cassini Spotted a Wave Shaking Up One of the Jupiter’s Jet Streams

Friday, March 16th, 2012 at 3:25 am  
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New movies of Jupiter are the first to catch an invisible wave shaking up one of the giant planet’s jet streams, an interaction that also takes place in Earth’s atmosphere and influences the weather. The movies, made from images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft when it flew by Jupiter in …

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New WISE Mission Catalog of Entire Infrared Sky Released by NASA

Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 8:40 pm  
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NASA unveiled a new atlas and catalog of the entire infrared sky today showing more than a half billion stars, galaxies and other objects captured by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

This is a mosaic of the images covering the entire sky as observed by the Wide-field Infrared …

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Yet Another Coronal Mass Ejection on Its Way

Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 2:05 pm  
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Sunspot AR1429 unleashed another strong flare (category M7.9) on March 13th. The explosion produced a significant coronal mass ejection (CME), which forecasters say should reach Earth today, March 15th, at 06:20 UT (+/- 7 hours), possibly triggering minor to moderate geomagnetic storms.

A bright comet related to sungrazing Comet Lovejoy …

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Cassini Captures New Images of Saturn’s Moon, Rhea

Thursday, March 15th, 2012 at 1:09 pm  
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These raw, unprocessed images of Saturn’s second largest moon, Rhea, were taken on March 10, 2012, by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. This was a relatively distant flyby with a close-approach distance of 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers), well suited for global geologic mapping.

During the flyby, Cassini captured these distinctive views of …

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