2010 could turn out to be a landmark year – the year that sees the announcement that extraterrestrial life has been discovered.
You’re probably wondering what nutjob I’ve been listening to. No less a nutjob than Astronomy magazine. Ok, so the magazine is a bit thin and light these days compared to what it used to be. But a snippet … Read the rest of this article
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched successfully today and achieved orbit after an abort earlier in the day. Following the cancellation of further development on NASA’s Constellation manned space vehicles, SpaceX received a sizeable investment from NASA to further develop their line of privately owned launchers.
The Falcon 9 is a two stage, liquid oxygen and rocket grade kerosene (RP-1) powered … Read the rest of this article
Lonely Pluto floats in the darkness at the edge of our solar system. It’s so far away even the Hubble Space Telescope has trouble making out the details. Nevertheless, Pluto is so interesting, even fuzzy images of the dwarf planet are compelling.
A team of researchers led by Marc Buie of the Southwest Research Institute recently released the best Hubble … Read the rest of this article
So you thought Northern Lights were big in Alaska? “That’s nothing,” says Randy Gladstone of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “Jupiter has auroras bigger than our entire planet.”
Last month, Gladstone and colleagues used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to capture the picture above.
The purple ring traces Jupiter’s X-ray auroras. Gladstone calls them “Northern Lights on steroids. … Read the rest of this article
A comprehensive analysis of distorted galaxies from the most ambitious cosmic survey ever undertaken by the Hubble Space Telescope has confirmed the mysterious cosmic acceleration. It has also provided the equivalent of a 3D map of part of the Universe.
A group of astronomers, led by Tim Schrabback of Leiden Observatory, conducted an intensive study of more than 446,000 galaxies … Read the rest of this article
In general, galaxies can be thought of as sociable, hanging out in groups and frequently interacting. However, this recent NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image highlights how some galaxies appear to be hungry loners.
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This image from the Advanced Camera for Surveys of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope highlights the large and bright elliptical galaxy called ESO 306-17 in the southern …
This striking image taken by NASA’s Terra satellite on 7 January shows the UK deep in the clutches of the current cold snap. While the UK is completely white, Ireland, at least the half you can is still green. On the ground it’s a different story. Dublin has been affected by the snow for the past couple of days. And … Read the rest of this article
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Spirit surveys its own predicament. The bright soil pictured left is loose, fluffy material churned by the rover’s left-front wheel as Spirit, driving backwards, broke through a darker, crusty surface. At right is the least-embedded of the rover’s six wheels. |
Homer’s Iliad tells the story of Troy, a city besieged by the Greeks in the Trojan War. Today, a lone … Read the rest of this article
The Orionid meteor shower peaks this week and it could be a very good show.
“Earth is passing through a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet, the source of the Orionids,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. “Flakes of comet dust hitting the atmosphere should give us dozens of meteors per hour.”
The best time to look is … Read the rest of this article
Two sunspots, which appeared on the autumnal equinox to break several months of extreme solar quiet [see New Sunspots (Finally!)], have faded away, leaving the sun blank once again. The deepest solar minimum in nearly a century appears poised to continue. NASA spacecraft are now reporting a surge in cosmic rays around Earth caused, somewhat ironically, by this low … 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
(Northern Hemisphere) |
Aurora Oval
(Southern Hemisphere) |
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