Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered a companion star to a rare type of supernova. This observation confirms the theory that the explosion originated in a double-star system where one star fueled the mass-loss from the aging primary star.
This detection is the first time astronomers have been able to put constraints on the properties of the companion … Read the rest of this article
Compared to the age of the solar system — about four-and-a-half billion years — a couple of decades are next to nothing. Some planetary locales change little over many millions of years, so for scientists who study the planets, any object that evolves on such a short interval makes for a tempting target for study. And so it is with … Read the rest of this article
Asteroid Flyby of Earth
On Sunday, Sept. 7th, a house-sized asteroid named “2014 RC” will fly through the Earth-Moon system approximately 25,000 miles (40,000 km) from our planet. At closest approach (over New Zealand), the space rock will be almost inside the orbit of Earth’s geosynchronous satellites. Amateur astronomers, especially those in the southern hemisphere, may be able to observe … Read the rest of this article
Children with visual disabilities can experience striking deep-space images like never before in a free, multi-touch iBooks textbook for the iPad entitled “Reach for the Stars: Touch, Look, Listen, Learn.” The book can be downloaded free from Apple’s iBooks Store here.
Astronomers at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) have teamed up with the SAS Corporation, the National Braille … Read the rest of this article
The NASA and European Space Agency Cassini mission has revealed hundreds of lakes and seas spread across the north polar region of Saturn’s moon Titan. These lakes are filled not with water but with hydrocarbons, a form of organic compound that is also found naturally on Earth and includes methane. The vast majority of liquid in Titan’s lakes is thought … Read the rest of this article
NASA is inviting the worldwide public to submit short messages and images on social media that could be placed in a time capsule aboard a spacecraft launching to an asteroid in 2016.
Called the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx), the spacecraft will rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu in 2019, collect a sample and return the cache in a capsule to … Read the rest of this article
Massive stars end their life with a bang, exploding as supernovas and releasing massive amounts of energy and matter. What remains of the star is a small and extremely dense remnant: a neutron star or a black hole.
Neutron stars come in several flavours, depending on properties such as their ages, the strength of the magnetic field concealed beneath their … Read the rest of this article
On Tue, Sep 2, at 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM (CEST), the ESA are holding a Google+ On Air Hangout to talk about the possible landing sites on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for Rosetta’s lander Philae.
The Hangout will also include a live draw for participants who took part in their ‘Rosetta, are we there yet?‘ photo contest – watch … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted an eruption of dust around a young star, possibly the result of a smashup between large asteroids. This type of collision can eventually lead to the formation of planets.
Scientists had been regularly tracking the star, called NGC 2547-ID8, when it surged with a huge amount of fresh dust between August 2012 and January … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers using ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory have demonstrated beyond doubt that dead stars known as white dwarfs can reignite and explode as supernovae. The finding came after the unique signature of gamma rays from the radioactive elements created in one of these explosions was captured for the first time.
The explosions in question are known as Type Ia supernovae, long … Read the rest of this article
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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