Such stars, much science! Shining in front of darker dust, this star cluster (NGC 3590) is about 7,500 light-years from Earth. And because the cluster is located in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, looking at the new European Southern Observatory can help astronomers figure out more about our how galaxy came to be. […]...
E = mc². It’s one of the most basic and fundamental equations throughout astrophysics. But it does more than suggest that mass and energy are interconnected, it implies that light can be physically transformed into matter. But can it really — physically — be done? Scientists proposed the theory more than 80 years ago, but […]...
Two great music videos published this week feature incredible imagery from space. Above, Pink Floyd released an 20th anniversary video version of their instrumental “Marooned” which uses timelapse video photography taken by astronauts on the International Space Station (which we’ve featured many times, like here and here). For you Pink Floyd-aphiles, the anniversary edition of […]...
If the hoped-for meteor blast materializes this Friday night / Saturday morning (May 23-24) Earth won’t be the only world getting peppered with debris strewn by comet 209P/LINEAR. The moon will zoom through the comet’s dusty filaments in tandem with us. Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office, alerts skywatchers to the possibility of lunar meteorite impacts starting...
This colorful new image from the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile shows the star cluster NGC 3590. These stars shine brightly in front of a dramatic landscape of dark patches of dust and richly hued clouds of glowing gas. This small stellar gathering gives astronomers clues about how these stars form and evolve — as well as giving hints about the structure of our galaxy's...
It’s time to get ready for Mars, again! NASA has given the approval to begin construction on its 2016 mission, the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission. As the mission implies, the lander (which isn’t moveable) will focus on learning more about the inside of Mars. The idea is to figure […]...
It’s like a total solar eclipse — without the Moon! Using a special hydrogen-alpha filter that completely blocks the Sun’s photosphere (visible surface) these images show just the Sun’s corona and the dancing solar prominences. The filter blocks all light from the Sun except for the red light emitted by excited hydrogen atoms, which are […]...
We humans are busy creatures when it comes to exploring the solar system. This new graphic (which updates one from four years ago) showcases all the planets we have visited in the past half-century. Both successful missions and failures are included on this updated list, although sadly you won’t find much about the various visits […]...
It’s amazing what astronomers can figure out from afar, and this now might include whether a star ate a few planets sometime during its history. Through looking at the predicted elements that make up a star, and any changes, this could be a key to figuring out if any planets were swallowed up by the […]...
As we anxiously await the arrival of a potentially rich new meteor shower this weekend, its parent comet, 209P/LINEAR, draws ever closer and brighter. Today it shines feebly at around magnitude 13.7 yet possesses a classic form with bright head and tail. It’s rapidly approaching Earth, picking up speed every night and hopefully will be […]...
47 Tucanae… the Coal Sack… Magellanic Clouds large and small… sure, it can be argued that the southern hemisphere sky has got all the “good stuff.” We’ve journeyed below the equator half a dozen times ourselves and we always make it a point to carry our trusty Canon 15x 45 image stabilized binocs – or […]...
On December 14, 1972, at about 5:40 a.m. GMT, Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Andrew “Gene” Cernan returned to the lunar module Challenger after the end of the third mission EVA to join Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, completing nearly two and a half days of surface operations within the Taurus-Littrow site and officially becoming the last human to […]...
A team’s findings provide a “smoking gun” for the magnetic tail theory. ...
The Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport mission will pierce beneath the martian surface to study its interior. ...
New research suggests that methanogens -- among the simplest and oldest organisms on Earth -- could survive on Mars. Methanogens, microorganisms in the domain Archaea, use hydrogen as their energy source and carbon dioxide as their carbon source, to metabolize and produce methane, also known as natural gas. Methanogens live in swamps and marshes, but can also be found in the gut of cattle, termites...
Astronomers have developed a model that estimates the effect that ingesting large amounts of the rocky material from which ‘terrestrial’ planets like Earth, Mars and Venus are made has on a star’s chemical composition and has used the model to analyze a pair of twin stars which both have their own planets. ...
It’s amazing to see what some flashes of light can tell us. New images the Hubble Space Telescope took of Saturn not only reveal auroras dancing in the north pole, but also reveal some interesting things about the giant planet’s magnetic field. “It appears that when particles from the Sun hit Saturn, the magnetotail collapses […]...
It could be the best of meteor showers, or it could be the… Well, we’ll delve into the alternatives here in a bit. For now, we’ll call upon our ever present astronomical optimism and say that one of the best meteor showers of 2014 may potentially be on tap for this weekend. This is a […]...
This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Allen Versfeld at his Urban Astronomer blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #354. (...)Read the rest of Carnival of Space #354 (91 words) susie for Universe Today, 2014. | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: Carnival of Space Feed enhanced by Better Feed […]...
Yikes! The Mothership has returned to Wyoming a la “Close Encounters of the Third Kind!” Yesterday a gigantic storm cloud spun into a flying saucer shape in eastern Wyoming near Newcastle and a storm-chasing group called Basehunters captured it all on film. Luckily, by the end of the footage, the storm dissipates. You can see […]...