Nicholos Wethington

Galactic Mergers Fail to Feed Black Holes

January 5, 2011

The large black holes that reside at the center of galaxies can be hungry beasts. As dust and gas are forced into the vicinity around the black holes, it crowds up and jostles together, emitting lots of heat and light. But what forces that gas and dust the last few light years into the maw [...]

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Over 400 Historic Space Artifacts up for Auction

January 4, 2011

If you’re interested in owning an artifact or two from the history of spaceflight, now could be your chance to snag some up. From January 13-20, over 400 artifacts relating to the history of spaceflight will be up on the auction block at RR Auction. There’s a diverse number of different pieces, ranging from an [...]

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Akatsuki Update: Fuel Pressure Drop Likely Caused Insertion Failure

December 11, 2010

While JAXA is still trying to get an exact handle on the problems that the Akatsuki probe sent to Venus encountered, there is a little bit of news leaking out. JAXA held a press conference last night, and the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper has a brief recap of the conference. During some of the systems checks [...]

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Nanosail-D Update: Things Look Grim

December 10, 2010

We reported the successful ejection of the Nanosail-D nanosatellite from the satellite that it was launched with earlier this week. Well, the most recent release from NASA states that things might have turned out otherwise. Not only has the sail potentially failed to deploy, it’s currently unclear if the nanosatellite was even ejected. In NASA’s [...]

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Taking a Galaxy’s Temperature

December 9, 2010

The role that supermassive black holes play in the formation of galaxies is a “hot” topic in astronomy. Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, an international team of astronomers have been able to create a temperature map of one galaxy, NGC 5813, which is located in the Virgo III Group of galaxies. The new map shows [...]

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The Zooniverse is Expanding: The Milky Way Project Begins Today

December 7, 2010

From the folks that brought you the addictive citizen science projects Galaxy Zoo and Moon Zoo (among others), comes yet another way to explore our Universe and help out scientists at the same time. The Milky Way Project invites members of the public to look at images from infrared surveys of our Milky Way and [...]

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Breaking News: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

December 6, 2010

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping off the Sun is estimated at over 700,000 km across, which is about the radius of [...]

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NASA’s Nanosail-D Released into the Winds of Space

December 6, 2010

Despite being an idea rattling around inside the head of engineers and space enthusiasts for over 40 years, solar sails have never really gained much traction in the way of actual deployment. Today, NASA has taken an important step towards testing solar sail technology for use in future spacecraft. The Nanosail-D spacecraft was launched Friday, [...]

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Calm Down: NASA Hasn’t Found any Aliens

November 30, 2010

You may have heard in your wanderings through the blogosphere and in the internet today that NASA will be holding a press conference on December 2nd in which they will make an announcement regarding information the search for extraterrestrial life. And that this announcement involves astrobiology, the study of life outside what we know about [...]

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Exoplanet Discovery Lists top 500

November 29, 2010

It was only a little over a year ago that the 400th extrasolar planet was confirmed, but time flies when you’re discovering exoplanets. The 19th of November 2010 marked the date that over 500 exoplanets had been confirmed on The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia. Though it’s an arbitrary number to celebrate, the fact that we’ve confirmed [...]

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Christie’s to Auction off 1st Edition Works by Newton, Galileo

November 29, 2010

It’s too bad that they missed Black Friday, but you’ll at least be able to get a few gifts for that astronomy enthusiast friend of yours for Christmas (or even for yourself!). The auction house Christie’s will be putting on the block 160 pieces from Edward Tufte’s rare book collection December 2nd in New York [...]

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An Apertif to the Next Radio Astronomy Entrée

November 29, 2010

To aid in the digestion of a new era in radio astronomy, a new technique for improving the is unfolding at the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) in the Netherlands. By adding a plate of detectors to the focal plane of just one of the 14 radio antennas at the WSRT, astronomers at the Netherlands [...]

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Longstanding Cepheid Mass Mystery Finally Solved

November 24, 2010

Cepheid variable stars – a class of stars that vary in brightness over time – have long been used to help measure distances in our local region of the Universe. Since their discovery in 1784 by Edward Pigott, further refinements have been made about the relationship between the period of their variability and their luminosity, [...]

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Researchers Discover 2nd Largest Impact Crater in Australia

October 28, 2010

Geothermal energy researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia have identified what may be the second largest meteorite impact crater in Australia. Dr. Tonguç Uysal of the University of Queensland and Dr. Andrew Glikson of Australian National University identified rock structures that appear to have formed because of the shock of a meteorite impact. [...]

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Another X-ray Nova Detected by ISS, Swift

October 25, 2010

A new X-ray emitting object in the Milky Way has been recently announced by the Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI) team and the Swift satellite astronomers. MAXI, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency supported instrument, monitors the entire sky in the X-ray portion of the spectrum from its perch on the International Space Station module [...]

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Watch a Mars Rover Under Construction – LIVE!

October 25, 2010

If you are tired of the drama of your favorite reality TV show, it might be time to switch things up a bit. The most recent reality show, available ad free on the internet, features a spunky robot and a huge cast of characters. The spunky robot is Curiosity, the name of the Mars Science [...]

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The Strange Warm Spot of upsilon Andromedae b

October 21, 2010

If you set a big black rock outside in the Sun for a few hours, then go and touch it, you’d expect the warmest part of the rock to be that which was facing the Sun, right? Well, when it comes to exoplanets, your expectations will be defied. A new analysis of a well-studied exoplanetary [...]

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Hubble Sees Asteroid Collision in Slow-Motion

October 13, 2010

Alas, the image above is not marking alien pirate treasure in space – for the first time, the aftermath of a collision between two asteroids has been imaged. Last January, an international team of astronomers saw the strange X-shaped object with the Hubble Space Telescope after ground-based observatories spotted evidence of an asteroid collision in [...]

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‘Secret’ X-37B Space Plane Disappears Again

October 11, 2010

The game between the United States Air Force and amateur satellite trackers continues: the unmanned X-37B space plane – a classified project of the Air Force – has changed orbit once again, leaving those that monitor the flyovers of the space plane scrambling to locate it once again. The X-37B was launched on April 22nd, [...]

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Comet Hartley 2 Scouted by WISE, Hubble for Upcoming Encounter

October 7, 2010

In a little less than a month, NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft (its current mission is called EPOXI) will fly by the comet Hartley 2 to image the comet’s nucleus and take other measurements. In preparation for this event, both the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the Hubble Space Telescope have imaged the comet, scouting [...]

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