Universe Today

NASA announced today that it has decided on June 8 as the official launch date for the space shuttle Atlantis, for mission STS-117. Barring any weather or technical delays, the shuttle will blast off at 2338 UTC (7:38 pm EDT), beginning its journey to the International Space Station.
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A clever trick has enabled NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to calculate the distance to a distant object, confirming that it's part of our Milky Way. An even more intriguing finding is that the object is probably a binary pair of black holes, orbiting one another – an extremely rare thing to see.
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After surveying more than 200 stars in various stages of formation, ESA's XMM-Newton X-Ray Observatory has revealed a dramatically different picture than what astronomers were predicting. Specifically, the observatory helped show how streams of matter fall down onto the stars' magnetic atmosphere, cooling the atmosphere, and absorbing X-rays.
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Another new planet has been announced this week that crosses the line between planet and brown dwarf. This time, the planet is called XO-3b, and it was discovered through a collaboration between amateur and professional astronomers.
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One of the brightest, closest stars to the Earth is Altair, located about 15 light-years away. For the first time, astronomers have imaged its surface, getting a better look at this bizarre neighbour.
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Let's see what's happening in the astrosphere.
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When the James Webb telescope launches in 2013, it'll be the most powerful telescope ever deployed in space. To the get the best view, using the least fuel, it'll sit in a stable orbit about 1.6 million km (1 million miles) from Earth. Unlike Hubble, it was never meant to be repaired. But NASA announced that it's considering installing a grapple attachment anyway, just to be safe.
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I've got to say, I nearly fell out of my chair when I read this today. NASA Administrator Mike Griffin was interviewed on NPR about the threat of global warming. Apparently, he's not convinced it's a problem.
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The International Space Station is getting an upgrade today. Cosmonauts Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov stepped outside the station this afternoon, to begin a 6-hour spacewalk to install a debris protection system to the Zvezda module. The station's 3rd resident, US astronaut Sunita Williams, remained inside.
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Brown dwarfs are failed stars that didn't have the mass to ignite fusion. But where do you draw the line between a large planet and a failed star? The Gemini observatory has helped discover the coolest brown dwarf ever seen. It's right in the middle between a star and planet.
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A new photograph taken by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory reveals one of the most energetic events ever seen in the Universe. According to astronomers, two huge galaxy clusters are currently undergoing a collision at a speed of 6.5 million km/h (4 million mph), releasing a tremendous amount of energy as their clouds of hot gas slam together. Or maybe it's a supermassive black hole consuming an incomprehensible amount of material.
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Astronomers have always assumed that the most active star formation was happening in the largest galaxy clusters, since they have the most activity. But a comprehensive new map of the Universe shows that it's the galaxy clusters in the outskirts which are the most active with new star formation.
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On Thursday, May 31st, 2007, the Moon will be full again, like it does every 29 days. But according to some traditions, it'll be a special Blue Moon, since it's full for the second time in May. The first full Moon occurred on May 2nd, and now, still in May, there's time for another full Moon.
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Here's what's going around the astrosphere.
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You know the saying: nothing, not even light can escape a black hole. That makes them invisible. Amazingly, researchers from the University of Maryland have determined how fast a supermassive black hole is spinning. You won't be surprised to know it's spinning insanely fast, at the limits predicted by relativity.
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