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| Two of Saturn's Moons Split By the Rings |
| Nov 3, 2005 - Cassini snapped this photograph of Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione separated by Saturn's rings seen nearly edgewise. Even though they're roughly the same size, it's easy to see they have much different surfaces, indicating different evolutionary histories. Cassini took this image on September 12, 2005 when it was 2.4 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Saturn. (Full Story) |
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| Hubble Sees a Dust Storm on Mars |
| Nov 3, 2005 - The Hubble Space Telescope snapped this high resolution image of Mars on October 28, 2005; one day before the Red Planet made its closest approach to Earth. Clearly visible near the middle of the planet is a large dust storm that has been growing and evolving over the last few weeks. This dust storm measures about 1,500 km (930 miles) across, and is actually visible in many amateur telescopes. Some of the smallest craters visible in this image are approximately 20 km (12 miles) across. (Full Story) |
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| Taurid fireball photographed Oct. 28, 2005. Image credit: Hiroyuki Iida. Click to enlarge. |
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| Look Up, You Might See a Fireball |
| Nov 3, 2005 - Have you seen some really bright meteors in the sky? You might have been lucky enough to see a fireball from the Taurid meteor shower. Every year in late October, early November, the Earth slams into the dust trail left behind Comet Encke. The tiny grains strike our atmosphere traveling at 105,000 kph (65,000 mph) and explode, leaving a bright trail that we see in the sky. 2005 could be a very special year for the Taurid meteor shower, which is due to peak between November 5th and November 12th. (Full Story) |
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| Cosmic Cloudshine |
| Nov 3, 2005 - We only see material in the Universe when it's hot enough to glow, like stars, hot clouds of gas or galaxies. The material which isn't glowing is practically invisible. But astronomers from the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have developed a method to detect the reflected starlight bouncing off of normally dark clouds of material. This "cloudshine" allows astronomers to see the shape of a cloud forming nebula in tremendous detail. (Full Story) |
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| The Milky Way's nucleus. Sagittarius A* is the bright white dot at center. Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Jun-Hui Zhao, W.M. Goss. Click to enlarge. |
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| Best View of the Milky Way's Core |
| Nov 3, 2005 - Astronomers have used the National Science Foundation's continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), to peer deeper into the heart of the Milky Way than ever before. This image brings astronomers tantalizingly close the supermassive black hole believed to lurk there called Sagittarius A*. The strong pull of this black hole should create a distinctive shadow on the surrounding material, which should be visible if astronomers can double the sensitivity of this instrument. (Full Story) |
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