Peering into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) has spotted a mysterious glow of high-energy X-rays that, according to scientists, could be the “howls” of dead stars as they feed on stellar companions.
“We can see a completely new component of the center of our galaxy with NuSTAR’s images,” said Kerstin Perez of … Read the rest of this article
Launched in 1990, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has made more than 1.2 million observations of more than 38,000 celestial objects.
In its 25-year lifetime the telescope has made nearly 137,000 trips around our planet. Hubble has racked up plenty of frequent-flier miles – 3.4 billion.
An average of 829 gigabytes of Hubble data are added to the archive every month.… Read the rest of this article
As NASA missions explore our solar system and search for new worlds, they are finding water in surprising places. Water is but one piece of our search for habitable planets and life beyond Earth, yet it links many seemingly unrelated worlds in surprising ways.
“NASA science activities have provided a wave of amazing findings related to water in recent years … Read the rest of this article
This dramatic panorama shows a colourful, shimmering auroral curtain reflected in a placid Icelandic lake. The image was taken on 18 March 2015 by Carlos Gauna, near Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon in southern Iceland.
The celestial display was generated by a coronal mass ejection, or CME – a massive eruption on the Sun – on 15 March. A flotilla of Sun-watching … Read the rest of this article
There are (so far) 1,800 known planets beyond our solar system, but among all of them, there’s no place like Earth. This Earth Day, April 22, NASA is asking you to share pictures and video of your favorite places on Earth using social media – and tag them #NoPlaceLikeHome.
The project seeks to get the public involved in highlighting the … Read the rest of this article
AAVSO Alert Notice 517Dr. Axel Schwope (Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam, Germany) has requested AAVSO observers’ assistance in monitoring the magnetic variable AM Her in support of upcoming XMM-Newton plus NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) observations.
The XMM-Newton observations are scheduled for 2015 April 06 02:37:02-15:07:02 … Read the rest of this article
AAVSO Alert Notice 515Event: Supernova in NGC 2442: SN 2015F = PSN J07361576-6930230
Discovered by: Libert A. G. Monard, Calitzdorp, Western Cape, South Africa
Discovery magnitude: 16.8 unfiltered CCD using a 35-cm RCX400 telescope (+SBIG ST8-XME camera)
Discovery date: 2015 March 9.789 UT
Coordinates: R.A. 07 36 15.76 Dec. … Read the rest of this article
There was no tape draped across a finish line, but NASA is celebrating a win. The agency’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity completed its first Red Planet marathon Tuesday — 26.219 miles (42.195 kilometers) – with a finish time of roughly 11 years and two months.
“This is the first time any human enterprise has exceeded the distance of a … Read the rest of this article
A team using the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover has made the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars from release during heating of Martian sediments.
The nitrogen was detected in the form of nitric oxide, and could be released from the breakdown of nitrates during heating. Nitrates are a class of … Read the rest of this article
These three images were sent to me by Fintan Sheerin who shot them in Drogheda, Ireland (a town north of Dublin). He had better luck with seeing the eclipse than I did.
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The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
(Northern Hemisphere) |
Aurora Oval
(Southern Hemisphere) |
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