Commander Mike Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Sunita Williams spent nearly 8 hours outside on the International Space Station on Wednesday, beginning the process of reconfiguring the station's power and cooling systems.
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Now here's a feat. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to analyze the atmosphere of a gas giant planet orbiting another star.
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Guess who took this picture of Jupiter? Hubble? Keck? A well equipped amateur here on Earth? Nope, it was taken by the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The picture was taken from orbit around Mars.
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A Zenit-3SL rocket carrying a Dutch communications satellite detonated on the Sea Launch platform on Tuesday, completely destroying the rocket, its satellite payload, and causing damage to the launch platform.
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One of the Hubble Space Telescope's main science instruments, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) has gone offline, and the chances of getting back online don't look so good.
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Our episode on black holes generated many many questions from listeners. We dip into this bottomless pool of questions and start dealing with them. Are really big black holes like the Big Bang? How can black holes evaporate? What would it look like to stand on a black hole? And just how large would a rock have to be before its gravity is so strong that a human can't escape?
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Monday, January 29 - Tonight we will return again to the lunar surface to have a look through binoculars or telescopes at another tremendous impact region.
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Where is our search for life taking us? Or, even simpler, why are we searching? Bruce Jakosky in his book Science, Society and the Search for Life in the Universe considers these questions and many others. However, he shows that searching for answers is almost as difficult as the search itself for life off of Earth.
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NASA has a new article on their site describing one of the technologies going into the mighty James Webb Space Telescope; the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. They've created an array of microshutters which will allow the telescope to dynamically block the light from nearby objects to make distant objects easier to see.
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NASA artists have released new images of the Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission. This is a secondary payload that will travel to the Moon with the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. Remember the Deep Impact mission, which smashed a probe into an asteroid? Same thing, except this time the target is the Moon.
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Remember the recent launch of the STEREO spacecraft? These are two identical solar observing spacecraft which will give astronomers a thrilling 3-D view of the Sun. Officially, they're the Solar TerrEstrial RElations Observatories (STEREO… get it?), and they were lofted into orbit on October 25.
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Monday, January 22 - Be out early tonight to catch the slender crescent Moon as we begin our journey designed to acquaint you with specific craters. Around midway on the terminator, you will spot a conspicuous old crater called Langrenus. Named for Belgian engineer and mathematician Michel Florent van Langren, this handsome old crater stretches out over 132 kilometers in diameter. Look closely at its walls, they rise above the surface by 1981 meters and the deepest part of the floor drops down below 4937 meters - deeper than Mount Cotacachi in Ecuador is tall. Is the Sun rising over its brilliant east wall? If so, look closely and see if you can spot Langrenus' central mountain peak rising up 1950 meters. Then get out your skis, because that's as high as the base elevation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming!
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It's astronomical society get together time, and we send Pamela to investigate and record. Hear the latest news that will make your text books out of date. Find out where all the dark matter is collecting, the identity of Kepler's supernova, and new insights into the closest, brightest supernova in recent memory.
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For a brief time in April 2006, the active region surrounding the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way settled down. Ten different sources of high energy rays all faded away temporarily, and ESA's Integral probe was able to capture images of less bright regions, which weren't completely obscured by the bright objects in their vicinity.
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Although New Horizons' main target is Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, it'll have plenty of opportunities to do some science along the way. Next up, Jupiter. The spacecraft is now just a few weeks away from its closest approach to the gas giant, where it'll capture some images but also receive a much needed speed boost.
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A small dwarf planet out past the orbit of Neptune could eventually become one of the brightest comets ever seen. Caltech professor Mike Brown - the discoverer of Eris - presented his calculations during the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society held in Seattle in early January.
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Apogee space books has published four more Pocket Space Guides. These small format books are each about half text and half photographs and are based on a narrow, space topic. The result is to be concise introductions and handy references. In addition, the many good quality photographs add flavourful spice to keep the reader interested. The following are reviews for each of the four.
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Remember the Mars Pathfinder? That plucky little rover that crawled around the surface of Mars back in 1997? Well, the new Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's powerful camera has found it again on the Martian terrain. It's time to relive those days of early Martian exploration.
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Although it's viewed more than 1,000 comets, NASA and ESA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory has never seen anything like Comet McNaught.
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Of all the stars in our galaxy, two classes, known as hydrogen-deficient and R Coronae Borealis are extremely rare. Only a few dozen have been discovered in our entire galaxy. And unlike most of the stars out there, they have almost no hydrogen. Instead, they have abnormally high quantities of a rare isotope of oxygen.
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One of Einstein's predictions for relativity is the concept of gravity waves; these are emitted whenever massive objects move. The more massive the object the stronger the gravity wave.
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Although it lasted years longer than anyone ever expected, the disappearance of NASA's Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is still a mystery the agency wants to investigate. The agency has created an internal review board to review the spacecraft's final days and recommend any new processes or policies that could improve future spacecraft.
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The sudden brightening of Comet McNaught has reminded us what a treat it can be to see a comet with the unaided eye. A diffuse ball with a long tail stretching across the sky. There's nothing else in the night sky that can compare to a bright comet. But what are these objects, where do they come from, and what can they tell us about the formation of the Solar System?
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Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! We start the week with a celestial scenery alert just before dawn… Look for the Moon, Antares, Jupiter and Mars! The days ahead are filled with alternative catalog studies and meteor showers. So be sure to look skyward, because…
Here's what's up!
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Okay, this is unprecedented. The really bright Comet McNaught that I mentioned a few days ago is now so bright that you can see it in the daytime. It's extremely close to the Sun, so you need a way that you can block the glare of the Sun, but still see the sky.
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