Massive stars are born in tumultuous clouds of gas and dust. They lead a brief but intense life, blowing powerful winds of particles and radiation that strike their surroundings, before their explosive demise as supernovas.
The interplay between massive stars and their environment is revealed in this image of the star-forming region ON2. It combines X-ray coverage from ESA’s XMM-Newton … Read the rest of this article
Touring the Milky Way now is as easy as clicking a button with NASA’s new zoomable, 360-degree mosaic presented Thursday at the TEDActive 2014 Conference in Vancouver, Canada.
The star-studded panorama of our galaxy is constructed from more than 2 million infrared snapshots taken over the past 10 years by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
“If we actually printed this out, … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers are announcing today that they have acquired the first direct evidence that gravitational waves rippled through our infant universe during an explosive period of growth called inflation. This is the strongest confirmation yet of cosmic inflation theories, which say the universe expanded by 100 trillion trillion times, in less than the blink of an eye.
The findings were made … Read the rest of this article
In celebration of the 24th anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (on April 24, 1990) astronomers have taken an infrared-light portrait of a roiling region of starbirth located 6,400 light-years away.
The Hubble mosaic unveils a collection of carved knots of gas and dust in a small portion of the Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC … Read the rest of this article
AAVSO Alert Notice 499On 2014 March 20 at approximately 02:06 a.m. EDT (06:06 UT), an occultation of Regulus (alf Leo, magnitude 1.4 V) by the magnitude-12.4 V asteroid (163) Erigone will take place. The occultation track includes Bermuda and northwest along a corridor stretching from the mid-Atlantic USA through Ontario, Canada. Unusual … Read the rest of this article
AAVSO Alert Notice 498Event: Nova Cephei 2014 = TCP J20542386+6017077
Discovered by: Koichi Nishiyama (Kurume, Japan) and Fujio Kabashima (Miyaki, Japan)
Discovery magnitude: unfiltered CCD magnitude 11.7, using a 105-mm f/4 camera lens + SBIG STL6303E camera
Discovery date: 2014 Mar. 8.792 UT
Coordinates: R.A. 20 54 23.75 Dec. +60 … Read the rest of this article
Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey debuted in the USA last night on Fox networks across the country at 9PM EDT/PDT. If you missed it, it should be repeated some time during the week. The remainder of the series will air on Fox with the National Geographic Channel rebroadcasting the episodes the next day with extra content.
For European viewers, the show … Read the rest of this article
More than 400 years ago, Galileo turned a primitive spyglass toward the sky, and in just a few nights learned more about the unseen heavens than all of the scientists and philosophers before him, combined.
Since then astronomers have been guided by a simple imperative: Make Bigger Telescopes. As the 21st century unfolds, the power of optics has grown a … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has recorded the never-before-seen break-up of an asteroid into as many as 10 smaller pieces. Fragile comets, comprised of ice and dust, have been seen falling apart as they approach the sun, but nothing like this has ever before been observed in the asteroid belt.
“This is a rock, and seeing it fall apart before our … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers say that magnetic storms in the gas orbiting young stars may explain a mystery that has persisted since before 2006.
Researchers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to study developing stars have had a hard time figuring out why the stars give off more infrared light than expected. The planet-forming disks that circle the young stars are heated by starlight … Read the rest of this article
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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