Ten years after a Delta II rocket launched NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, lighting up the night sky over Cape Canaveral, Fla., the fourth of the agency’s four Great Observatories continues to illuminate the dark side of the cosmos with its infrared eyes.
The telescope studied comets and asteroids, counted stars, scrutinized planets and galaxies, and discovered soccer-ball-shaped carbon spheres in … Read the rest of this article
When the Space Age began, astronomers knew of exactly zero planets outside the solar system. What a difference 50 years makes.
Modern, ground-based telescopes and NASA’s Kepler spacecraft have now confirmed more than 850 exoplanets, while thousands more await confirmation. The pace of discovery suggests “there are at least 100 billion planets in our galaxy,” says John Johnson of Caltech, … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have solved a 40-year mystery on the origin of the Magellanic Stream, a long ribbon of gas stretching nearly halfway around our Milky Way galaxy.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, are at the head of the gaseous stream. Since the stream’s discovery by radio telescopes in … Read the rest of this article
The mysterious, almost mystical bright light emerging from these thick, ominous clouds is actually a telltale sign of forming stars.
Here, a very young star is being born in the guts of the dark cloud LDN 43 – a massive blob of gas, dust and ices, gathered 520 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus, The Serpent Bearer.
Stars … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided the strongest evidence yet that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are triggered by the merger of two small, super-dense stellar objects, such as a pair of neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole.
The definitive evidence came from Hubble observations in near-infrared light of the fading fireball produced in the aftermath of a … Read the rest of this article
New observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have helped astronomers crack a longstanding puzzle about galaxy evolution.
For years, scientists have wondered why galaxies that have ceased forming new stars — so-called “quenched galaxies” — were smaller long ago than they are today. Perhaps, they thought, ancient quenched galaxies continued to grow by merging with smaller cousins that had also … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope have observed what most likely are strong carbon dioxide emissions from Comet ISON ahead of its anticipated pass through the inner solar system later this year.
Images captured June 13 with Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera indicate carbon dioxide is slowly and steadily “fizzing” away from the so-called “soda-pop comet,” along with dust, in a … Read the rest of this article
Across the world, children fall asleep under the faint light from glow-in-the-dark astronomy stickers. Though undeniably adorable, these ceiling planetariums are too jam-packed to be realistic. You’d never see stars, dozens of spiral galaxies, and comets all at the same time, all shining together from the same patch of sky. Unless, of course, you had Hubble.
On April 30, NASA’s … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a new moon orbiting the distant blue-green planet Neptune, the 14th known to be circling the giant planet.
The moon, designated S/2004 N 1, is estimated to be no more than 12 miles across, making it the smallest known moon in the Neptunian system. It is so small and dim that it is roughly … Read the rest of this article
Astronomers making visible-light observations with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have deduced the actual color of a planet orbiting another star 63 light-years away.
The planet is HD 189733b, one of the closest exoplanets that can be seen crossing the face of its star.
Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph measured changes in the color of light from the planet before, during … 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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