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| Year in Space 2006 Calendar Reminder |
Dec 14, 2005 - With Christmas approaching, I just wanted to give you a final reminder about the Year in Space 2006 calendar. This 144-page spiral-bound desk calendar has 53 full-colour space photographs, so you can gaze into infinity as you plan your week. It's filled with space trivia, sky events, daily Moon phases, and additional calendars. Universe Today readers can save at least 27% off the suggested retail price and pay only $10.95 USD by ordering online. There's free shipping in the U.S., and deeper discounts for multiple copies. Click here to visit their website.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
P.S. And congratulations to Andrea from Madison, Wisconson who won the calendar giveaway I did last week. Nice going! (Full Story) |
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| Distribution of dark matter around galaxy cluster CL 0152-1357. Image credit: Jee et al. Click to enlarge. |
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| Podcast: Dark Matter Maps |
| Dec 14, 2005 - What's the Universe made of? Don't worry if you don't have a clue, astronomers don't either. The Universe is dominated by a mysterious dark matter that seems to form the true mass of a galaxy, not the regular matter - like stars and planets - that we can actually see. Dr. James Jee from Johns Hopkins University used the Hubble Space Telescope to create a detailed map of dark matter concentrations around two galaxies. And astronomers just got some new clues. (Full Story) |
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| Gaps in Saturn's Rings |
| Dec 14, 2005 - In this Cassini image, Saturn's rings cast dark shadows across the face of the giant planet. The three bright arcs in the image are the three well-known gaps in Saturn's rings: the Cassini Division, the Encke Gap and the Keeler Gap. Cassini took this image on October 29, 2005 when it was 446,000 kilometers (277,000 miles) from Saturn. (Full Story) |
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| An Orbit Synthesis Example for Hayabusa Return starting in 2007. Image credit: JAXA Click to enlarge |
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| Hayabusa's Return Probably Delayed |
| Dec 14, 2005 - JAXA engineers are working hard to recover their ailing Hayabusa spacecraft. The spacecraft has been out of contact since December 9th, after it turned suddenly from a fuel leak. Hayabusa was supposed to return to Earth in June 2007, but JAXA is concerned that it won't have enough fuel to make this date, so they'll probably push the return back to 2010. Unfortunately, they have no way of knowing if Hayabusa actually retrieved a sample from Itokawa during its close encounter. (Full Story) |
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| XMM-Newton view of hot ionised gas halo in NGC 4631. Image credit: ESA Click to enlarge |
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| Massive Gas Halos Surround Most Galaxies |
| Dec 14, 2005 - ESA's XMM-Newton observatory has turned up hot gaseous halos around several spiral galaxies. These ghostly veils have been seen surrounding "starburst galaxies", which are going through a tremendous amount of star formation - but not around the more common kinds of galaxies. Unlike a starburst galaxies, which concentrates their halos, regular galaxies will have simmering star formation stretching across them entirely. These halos can contain up to 10 million solar masses of gas. (Full Story) |
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| A view of Buffy's and other Kuiper belt object orbits. Image credit: CFHT Click to enlarge |
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| Buffy the Kuiper Belt Object |
| Dec 14, 2005 - An international team of astronomers have discovered a new large object in the Kuiper Belt; a region of the Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune. The object's official designation is 2004 XR 190, but the discoverers are calling it "Buffy" for now. Buffy is approximately half the size of Pluto, and orbits the Sun roughly double the distance of Neptune. Although there are larger objects in the Kuiper Belt, Buffy has one of the most unusual orbits: 47-degrees off the plane of the ecliptic, where the other planets orbit. (Full Story) |
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