Universe Today

A Soyuz capsule carrying the crew of Expedition 13 and space tourist Anousheh Ansari landed safely in the steppes of Kazakhstan on Thursday. The spacecraft slowed its descent using retrorockets and parachutes, and landed softly on its side. A dozen helicopter teams arrived on the scene minutes later to help the astronauts out of the spacecraft. They were then flown to a training centre outside Moscow. The total return time back to Earth took about 3 hours from when the capsule detached from the space station.
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The universe is such a very big place. A seemingly non-stop cavalcade of discoveries pushes its dimensions ever further. At the same time, these new findings fill this enlarging region with new colours and images. Patrick Moore in his book, 'Atlas of the Universe' brings many of the wonders of this space into a reader's view. The universe is big but this book makes it all very manageable.
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If the universe extends forever and if it's full of stars, why is the night sky dark? This is a question that has been asked by philosophers and scientists since Antiquity. Johannes Kepler sought an answer, as did Edmond Haley, many years after him. Just as an observer sees trees in all directions when standing in a forest, every line of sight in an infinite universe should end with the twinkling of a star. The net result should be a sky ablaze with heavenly light. Not only should the night sky be as bright, if not brighter, than during the day but the heat from all those suns should be sufficient to boil the Earth's oceans away! Therefore, the starry scene depicted in the striking picture that accompanies this article, should appear to be missing stars when compared to gazing into the Cosmos above.
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Thanks to everyone who emailed me to win a copy of Battlestar Galactica Season 2.5 DVD. In the end, more than 500 of you threw your names into the hat. And the winner is… Chris Houser from Boone, North Carolina. Chris, the DVD will go out in the mail today. Of course, it'll probably get snarled up in the Canada-US border, so let me know when you receive it.
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Astronomers think they've got a handle on how Sun-sized stars come together. But the formation of the largest stars – more than 10 times the mass of the Sun – still puzzle astronomers. New observations on a 20 solar mass star have revealed that these giant stars maintain a torus of material around themselves. They can continuously feed from this "doughnut" of material, while powerful jets of radiation pour from their poles. The material can continue gathering onto the star while avoiding this radiation, which would normally blast it back into space.
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An international team of astronomers have turned up two new Jupiter-sized planets orbiting distant stars. These planets are incredibly close to their parent stars; just a fraction of the distance from Mercury to the Sun. Astronomers believe these planets are being eroded by the intense radiation of their stars. The discovery was made using the new SuperWASP program, which looks for stars that dim and brighten on a regular schedule as a planet passes in front of them.
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This photograph shows a star forming region in NGC 3576, located about 9,000 light years from Earth. The image was captured by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory, which reveals the higher energy emissions from the region. The blue dots are newly born stars generating ferocious solar winds (the more diffuse parts of the image). NGC 3576 is a particularly dense nebula, so many of these stars have been hidden from previous observations, until they were revealed by Chandra.
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You might have seen better looking pictures of Jupiter before, but that's not the point. What matters is that this photograph was taken by the Pluto-bound New Horizons spacecraft. It took the picture on September 4, 2006 when it was still 291 million km (181 million miles) away from Jupiter. Don't worry, the pictures will get much better. It'll make its closest approach on February 28, 2007, and see the giant planet with 125 times better resolution than this picture.
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This incredible photograph taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows two lakes on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan, attached by a thin channel. The image was taken during Cassini's most recent flyby, when it passed by on September 23, 2006. On Earth, they'd be filled with water, but it's just too cold on Titan; so these lakes contain a mixture of methane and ethane.
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After a journey of 21 months, NASA's Opportunity rover has finally reached its destination: Victoria Crater. Its first photos of the crater's interior show steep walls of exposed rock. Since these rock layers were put down gradually over eons, they'll tell the area's geologic history better than anything Opportunity has seen so far. The rover will now begin searching the crater rim to see if there's any way it can get down into the crater.
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You have lived on the Earth all your life, so you'd think you know plenty about planets. As usual though, the Universe is stranger than we assume, and the planets orbiting other stars defy our expectations. Gigantic super-Jupiters whirling around their parent stars every couple of days; fluffy planets with the density of cork; and Earth-sized fragments of exploded stars circling pulsars. Join us as we round up the latest batch of bizarro worlds.
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A Boeing Delta II rocket blasted off on Sunday, carrying a Block IIR Global Positioning System satellite into orbit. The rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 17A at Cape Canaveral at 1850 UTC (2:50 pm EDT), and deployed the satellite 68 minutes later into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The satellite will soon join the US Air Force Global Positioning System, which provides accurate positioning data to vehicles and devices on Earth.
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Hot enough for you? A new NASA study has found that global temperatures are nearing their hottest level in more than 12,000 years – since the last glaciers covered large portions of the planet. In fact, global temperatures have been going up approximately 0.2° Celsius (.36° Fahrenheit) per decade for the past 30 years. In fact, global temperatures are now within one degree Celsius of the hottest temperatures measured in the last million years.
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Despite being years past their warranty date, NASA's twin Mars rovers have been pressed into duty for another year. Mars Global Surveyor and Odyssey orbiters have also been given 2-year mission extensions. Spirit and Opportunity are doing surprisingly well, despite roaming the Martian landscape for more than 31 months. During this fourth mission extension, the rovers will return to the Martian spring and summer, when they get increased sunlight to power their solar panels.
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The Moon is back, but so are studies as we take a great look a planetary nebula this week. Yes, we'll study lunar features, but let's not forget variable stars and bright clusters! Time to turn an eye towards the sky, because….

Here's what's up!
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