Universe Today

According to the estimations made by the IAU (International Astronomical Union) and ICQ (International Comet Quarterly) information, Comet C/2005 L3 McNaught wasn't supposed to be any brighter than magnitude 15 this month and in a slow decline in brightness. However, thanks to observations done by Joseph Brimacombe at Macedon Ranges Observatory, the "tale of the tape" shows a different story… Click to continue…

Filed under: Astronomy, Earth Observation | 1 Comment »

Looking for Hawking Radiation in space is likely impossible with our current technology. But scientists here on Earth recently used flowing water to simulate a black hole and create event horizons, testing Stephen Hawking's famous prediction that the event horizon creates particles and anti-particles.
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Filed under: Black Holes | 4 Comments »

The director of the Vatican observatory said it's possible that intelligent life exists on other planets. And since aliens would be part of God's creation, their existence would not contradict the Catholic faith. In an interview with the Vatican newspaper Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes discussed the Big Bang theory, as well as creation and evolution. The interview was originally published in Italian, but a priest from Holland translated the full interview to English and posted it on his website, FatherRoderick.com:

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Filed under: Astrobiology | 29 Comments »

Do you think there is life on Mars? Do you think Phoenix will find evidence of it? Now there's a blog that's trying to collect a snapshot of the opinions of scientists, amateurs, and everyday people. "Imminent Discovery" thinks Phoenix may find simple life. Finding this evidence will definitely become headlines… If it happens. Is it possible it might have originated from earth? Perhaps from space, like the famous Antarctica meteorite which was believed to contain evidence of life transported here from Mars? Click to continue…

Filed under: Astrobiology, Extreme Life, Mars, Missions | 52 Comments »

You can breathe easily. The Moon is slowly receding away from the Earth at a rate of 3.7 cm/year (1.5 in/yr). But the Martians aren't so lucky. Their moon Phobos is known to be doing exactly the opposite. It's spiraling inward, and in the distant future it will crash into the surface of Mars. Researchers originally thought that Phobos has about 50 million years to go, but an Indian researcher has re-run the calculations and thinks Phobos only has about a quarter of that time to live.
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Filed under: Astronomy | 11 Comments »

Venus is known as the Earth's twin, but a better name might be Earth's "evil twin" planet. Although Venus has a similar size and mass to Earth, it has a dramatically different surface and atmosphere. And one of the biggest differences is that fact that Earth has plate tectonics, and Venus doesn't. New research indicates that prolonged atmospheric heat might be able to shut down plate tectonics, and cause our planet's crust to be locked in place. Don't worry, this isn't something we'll have to worry about for a few hundred million years.
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Filed under: Earth, Venus | 13 Comments »

Dusting the house might be a chore here on Earth, but when astronauts return to the Moon, they'll need to be neat freaks. Their lives might depend on it! According to researchers at the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, the health of lunar astronauts will depend on how well they can keep the fine lunar dust out of the air.
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Filed under: Constellation, Moon, NASA | 10 Comments »

You probably already forgot, but NASA has a spacecraft heading to Mars right now. The Phoenix Mars Lander has been traveling for almost 10 months, and it's going to be landing on the surface of Mars in just a few days. Mark your calendar for May 25, 2008. it's going to be an exciting day.
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Filed under: Mars, Missions | 12 Comments »

Our understanding of the cosmos has been revolutionized by the Hubble Space Telescope. The breathtaking familiar photos, like the Pillars of Creation, pale in comparison to the astounding amount of science data returned to Earth. Hubble's getting old, though, serviced several times already, and due for another mission later this year. Let's relive the historic observatory's amazing life so far, and see what the future holds.

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The Hubble Space Telescope – Show notes and transcript

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Filed under: Hubble, Podcasts | 1 Comment »

It would be amazing to think that anything could have survived the fiery destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, which broke up above Texas on February 1st, 2003, killing all 7 astronauts. Amazingly, tiny worms survived the break up and crash. And now, data recovery experts announced they were able to salvage scientific data from a charred hard drive.
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Filed under: Astronomy | 5 Comments »

Over the past few weeks we've taken a look at some pretty incredible regions of space through astrophotography – Wolf Rayet stars, Thackeray's Globules, tidal interactions and even giant dust clouds bursting with star birth. This time, let's take a look at something so obscure that it might even be the first time that it's been photographed… Click to continue…

Filed under: Astronomy | 1 Comment »

NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander is just a few weeks away from landing on the surface of Mars. NASA really hopes that this spacecraft doesn't fallow in the doomed path of the previous Mars Polar Lander. What happened to the Mars Polar Lander? Nobody knows. NASA assumes it's smashed up somewhere on the surface of the Red Planet. Now you can help search for it, by looking through high resolution images of the potential crash site.
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Filed under: Mars | 2 Comments »

When I first saw the Celestron SkyScout Scope 90 appear, I knew that some day, some how I was going to have to get my hands on one of these refractor telescopes. I am fascinated with my Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium and the thought of adding an easy-to-use telescope to it as as system was simply irresistible. My only thought was would this be the Celestron quality I've always known and loved… or would it be a disappointment?
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Filed under: Telescope Reviews | 8 Comments »

Does your cell phone bill ever reach astronomical proportions? Maybe you're doing too much texting. One space scientist has worked out that sending texts via mobile phones works out to be far more expensive than downloading data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Nigel Bannister from the University of Leicester looked at the cost of obtaining a megabyte of data from Hubble and compared it with the cost of sending a text. His calculations? “The bottom line is texting is at least 4 times more expensive than transmitting data from Hubble, and is likely to be substantially more than that."
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Filed under: Hubble | 13 Comments »

The Colbert Report has gone galactic! ISS astronaut Garrett Reisman joked with Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central last night. It's a very fun interview. Laser cannons and alien puppet masters are mentioned.

Source: Comedy Central

Filed under: Astronomy | 12 Comments »