This week Venus, the second planet from the sun, will pass directly in front of the Pleiades star cluster. It’s a rare sunset conjunction that’s easy to find with the unaided eye, but best seen through binoculars or a small telescope.
Venus approaching the Pleiades on March 31st, photographed by astronomy professor Jimmy Westlake of Stagecoach, Colorado.
The action begins … Read the rest of this article
Following the announcement by Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon) that he had located the Saturn V engines from the Apollo 11 mission in 14,000 feet of water last week, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden issued this statement regarding the efforts announced this week by Bezos to recover main engines from the Saturn V first stage rocket of Apollo 11:
“I would … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds. Recent finds include planets with double suns, massive “super-Earths” and “hot Jupiters,” and a miniature solar system. The variety of planets circling distant suns is as wonderful as it is surprising.
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NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is discovering a veritable avalanche of alien worlds. As the numbers mount, it seems to …
Having to move the Night Sky Observer and its associated sites, like the Telescope Guide to a new webhosting company proved to be more problematical than anticipated.
While the main sites were moved at the end of last month, there were some subdomains that had to be moved as well.
All this was compounded by there being a problem on … Read the rest of this article
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 conditions on Mars have favored life.
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Curiosity, the big rover of …
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 accumulated a lot of stuff over that time.
The site … Read the rest of this article
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, which spew through cracks in the moon’s icy shell, could lead … Read the rest of this article
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.
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Three types of systems, illustrated here, may host Type Ia supernovae. The first two panels depict a white dwarf in a binary system accumulating matter transferred from a red supergiant companion many …
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.
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In this image from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, bright material extends out from the crater Canuleia on Vesta. The bright material appears …
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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