Mirrors are a critical part of a telescope. The quality is crucial, so completion of mirror polishing represents a major milestone. All of the mirrors that will fly aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have been polished so the observatory can see objects as far away as the first galaxies in the universe.
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This image shows the four different types …
ESA and NASA have announced the scientific investigations selected for their 2016 ExoMars lander demonstrator. They will probe the atmosphere during the descent, and return the first ever data on electrical fields at the surface of Mars.
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An artist’s impression of the ESA/NASA ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter. The orbiter will carry a European entry, descent and landing demonstrator vehicle. Credits: …
The 2011 noctilucent cloud (NLC) season has begun. For the past few nights, observers in northern parts of Europe have spotted velvety, electric-blue tendrils rippling across the sunset sky. NLCs are a summertime phenomenon first reported by polar observers in the 19th century. In recent decades, for reasons no one fully understands, the clouds have intensified and spread … Read the rest of this article
The first scientific results from ESA’s Planck mission were released at a press briefing today in Paris. The findings focus on the coldest objects in the Universe, from within our Galaxy to the distant reaches of space.
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This image shows the location of the first six fields used to detect and study the Cosmic Infrared Background. The fields, named N1, |
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The 33-year odyssey of NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where there is no outward motion of solar wind.
Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 10.8 billion miles from the sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly … Read the rest of this article
A mysterious high-altitude layer of sulphur dioxide discovered by ESA’s Venus Express has been explained. As well as telling us more about Venus, it could be a warning against injecting our atmosphere with sulphur droplets to mitigate climate change.
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Close-up on venusian cloud structures at the south pole |
Venus is blanketed in sulphuric acid clouds that block our view of … Read the rest of this article
Nearly a year after announcing the discovery of water molecules on the moon, scientists have revealed new data uncovered by NASA’s Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO—and it’s more than just water.
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The missions found evidence that lunar … Read the rest of this article
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Zipping through space at nearly a million miles per day, NASA’s New Horizons probe is halfway to Pluto and just woke up for the first time in months to look around.
“Our spacecraft is way out in exotic territory, in the middle of nowhere,” says Hal Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at Johns Hopkins … Read the rest of this article
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January 14, 2010: The premiere observatory of the next decade, the James Webb Space Telescope, will launch in 2014 in search of “big game”–namely, the first stars and galaxies ever formed in our Universe. But the “little game” could turn out to be just as interesting. There’s a dawning awareness among … 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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