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| Wallpaper from the Spitzer Space Telescope |
Dec 19, 2003 - The new photographs from the Spitzer Space Telescope are just awesome, and to celebrate, here's a new desktop wallpaper for your computer. This is an image of a dark globule in IC 1386. It's an amazing picture that you'll be staring at for quite a while. To make this your computer background, click the following link and wait until the entire image loads up in your computer screen (warning, it's a big file… 350 K). Then right-click anywhere on the picture and choose, "Set as Wallpaper" to put this as your computer desktop.
Click here to download the image of IC 1386 (350 K).
Enjoy!
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
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| Image credit: Chandra |
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| Chandra Observes Supernova Remnant |
| Dec 19, 2003 - A new image released from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows a glowing shell of gas created by the explosion of a massive star. The supernova remnant is called N63A, and thought to be 2,000 to 5,000 years old; it's located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A comparison of this image with optical and radio observations show that the shockwave of material is engulfing the entire cloud of material, heating it up to ten million degrees Celsius. |
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| Image credit: Scaled Composites |
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| Paul Allen is Backing SpaceShipOne |
| Dec 19, 2003 - Scaled Composites has confirmed that billionaire Paul Allen is the financial backer for the company's SpaceShipOne suborbital rocket plane - a rumour that's been circulating in the space industry for several months. Allen's announcement coincided with SpaceShipOne's recent flight test which broke the sound barrier. Allen is the third richest person in the United States with an estimate wealth of $22 billion. |
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| Image credit: ESA |
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| Beagle 2 Separates from Mars Express |
| Dec 19, 2003 - The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft successfully released the British-built Beagle 2 lander this morning, completing a major milestone on its trip to Mars. Mars Express fired a pyrotechnic device which slowly released a spring and separated the two spacecraft. Since Beagle 2 has no propulsion system, controllers have no way of fine-tuning the lander's flight path. If everything goes as planned, Beagle 2 will enter the planet's atmosphere on December 25. |
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| Image credit: ESO |
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| The Universe Used to Be More Blue |
| Dec 19, 2003 - Although the Universe is currently a beige colour overall, it used to be more blue, according to astronomers with the European Southern Observatory. This was caused by the predominantly hot, young blue stars in the most distant galaxies - astronomers are seeing them when the Universe was only 2.5 billion years old. The astronomers worked out the distance and colour to 300 galaxies which were contained within the Hubble Deep Sky survey, which took a deep look at a region of sky in the southern constellation of Tuscanae. |
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