Astronomers have managed to peer past obscuring dust clouds to gain their first peek at the gestation of a massive proto-star W33A which is about 12,000 light years away within the Sagittarius constellation. A spokesperson for the research team, who you may not be surprised to learn is British, described the sight as ‘reassuringly familiar, like a nice cup of tea’. Click to continue…
Filed under: Astronomy | 1 Comment »
Friday's close conjunction of the full Moon and Mars was spectacular… "if" you weren't surrounded by clouds! Did you get a chance to see it – or better yet take a photo? Then why not share… Click to continue…
Filed under: Astrophotos | 13 Comments »
Twitpic of Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA from the ISS on Jan 30, 2010. Credit Astronaut Soichi Noguchi
“Golden Gate Bridge, San Fransisco, CA. Beautiful shadow 
,” tweeted Astronaut Soichi Noguchi along with a live image he shot from space from inside the International Space Station.
The 5 man crew comprising Expedition 22 aboard the ISS now have the capability to transmit live, unfiltered views and comments from space. And whats more is that starting on Feb. 1 they’ll be streaming live video from the outpost, orbiting some 220 miles above the earth while speeding along at 17,500 MPH. Click to continue…
Filed under: Astronomy, Astrophotos, Earth Observation, NASA, Observing, Science, Space Station | 1 Comment »
Away in Pegasus and 225 million light years from Earth, a barred spiral galaxy designated as NGC 7771 spans across 164,000 light years of space. It is a part of a small galaxy group consisting of lenticular galaxy NGC 7770 to the south and edge-on NGC 7771A to the west connected to magnificent spiral NGC 7769. But horsefeathers doesn't mean this little clump of galactic partners is nonsense… Horsefeathers are what we need to make an intergalactic duster just to see them! Click to continue…
Filed under: Astrophotos | 1 Comment »
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is lifted atop the Atlas V rocket. Credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller
Filed under: Astronomy, Missions, Solar Astronomy, Space Exploration | 1 Comment »
Living on a planet comes with certain advantages. Gravity, for instance. The only reason hot air rises on Earth is that colder, denser air will always fall to displace it upwards. On the International Space Station everyone has to sleep next to a fan or they end up being enveloped in a bubble of their exhaled carbon dioxide (or worse). Click to continue…
Filed under: Astronomy | 15 Comments »
This great new video (just uploaded today!) does a great job of explaining the upcoming Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission, which is slated to launch on Feb. 9, 2010. SDO will provide a new eye on the sun that will deliver solar images with 10 times better resolution than high-definition television. This mission will zoom in on the cause of severe space weather—solar activity such as sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections. It will give us the best look ever at our Sun.
For more information see our detailed preview article on SDO.
Filed under: Solar Astronomy | 3 Comments »
Mission managers for the Mars Exploration Rover program announced this week that the Spirit rover will likely never rove again on Mars. But that doesn't mean her life is over. However, with the rover virtually immobile and stuck in a sand trap, she currently is in a very vulnerable and potentially "deadly" situation as winter approaches on Mars' southern hemisphere. Pointing the rover's solar panels towards the sun is critical if the rover is to survive, and the rover team has just a handful of drives to make it so. And the winters are long and harsh on Mars. "The temperatures will be colder than anything Spirit has experienced before," said John Callas, project manager for the MER mission. "This is a much more difficult and dangerous situation for Spirit, and we're heading into a regime where vehicle is going to get colder than it ever has."
What is Spirit facing, and what are her odds?
Click to continue…
Filed under: Mars, Missions | 2 Comments »
Spokes visible in Saturn's B ring. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
The mysterious spokes that sometimes appear in Saturn’s largest ring, the B ring, have been unexplained. But new measurements from Cassini's Visual Infrared Mapping spectrometer (VIMS) suggests the radial spokes that sometimes form across the ring are entirely composed of water ice. The existence of the spokes were unexpected and were first observed when the Voyager spacecraft flew by Saturn in 1980. When Cassini arrived at Saturn in 2004, the spokes were not visible, but later appeared in 2005; the VIMS instrument was not able to observe the spokes until 2008. Even with this new information, the spokes are still mysterious, as they appear to be a seasonal phenomenon and can become visible and then fade within a few hours. The process that creates and dissipates the spokes is unknown.
Click to continue…
Filed under: Saturn | 10 Comments »
Interactive scale of the universe, created by Fotoshop on NewGrounds. Click to access.
Via the Bad Astronomer, check out this incredible interactive Flash animation from NewGrounds that provides a scale of the Universe, from the very small (0.0000000001 yoctometers) to as large as we know, the estimated size of the Universe. Click on the image, or here to access, and after it loads, use the slider at the bottom to zoom in and out. Gives you a new appreciation for all that's out there, big and small!
Filed under: Uncategorized | 6 Comments »
False-color map of the density of red giants in M31 (Star count map credit: Mikito Tanaka, Tohoku University)
One team – using the Suprime-Cam camera on Subaru – discovered two new dwarf galaxy shards by mapping the sky density of red giants in M31's outskirts; the other – using the DEIMOS spectrograph on Keck II – separated the M31 red giant wheat from the Milky Way chaff.
Click to continue…
Filed under: Astronomy, galaxies | 4 Comments »
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The Full Moon and Mars… the Full Moon and Mars… Will they be as big as each other? Or dance with the stars? Be sure to take time out of your busy evening to at least step outside to check out this relatively close visual pairing. You might not need a telescope for the weekend conjunction, but be sure to bring one along as we check out some very special stars along the way! Now, let's wait on the Sun to set and I'll see you in the back yard…. Click to continue…
Filed under: Astronomy, Observing | 6 Comments »
An almost full Moon on Jan. 27, 2010. Credit and copyright: Alan Walters
If your skies are clear on Friday night, January 29, 2010, take advantage of one of the skywatching highlights of the year. A full Moon and Mars will be putting on a show, and the pair will be prominently close to each other in the sky. Plus, this Friday night's full Moon is the biggest and brightest full Moon of the year. It's a "perigee Moon," as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than other full Moons you'll see later in 2010, according to Spaceweather.com. And, even though you've likely not gotten an email from an excited acquaintance relaying that Mars is really close to the Earth now — that is the case. Mars is at opposition on the 29th, which means it lines up opposite the Sun and is now the closest to Earth their orbits, and so will shine brighter.
The image above of the not-quite-full Moon from January 27, 2010 is shared by Universe Today reader Alan Walters, from Florida. You can see more of his wonderful photography of the night sky, launches and shuttle landings, Florida wildlife and more at Alan Walters Photography.
Click to continue…
Filed under: Mars, Moon, Observing | 12 Comments »
With all the speculation currently making the rounds about Obama axing the Constellation program and ending the possibilities of humans returning to the Moon anytime soon, it was brought to our attention by a reader that under the 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act, H.R. 3288, passed on September 17, 2009, Congress inserted a clause in the language of the FY2010 NASA funding bill that would prevent President Obama from terminating the Constellation program without Congressional approval. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama — two states that have a huge stake in NASA's future — were the main sponsors of the clause in the Senate version. So, it doesn't appear that Obama can just cut Constellation, not without a fight, anyway.
Also while we're on the subject of NASA's future, Administrator Charlie Bolden spoke in Israel yesterday, and journalist Avi Blizovsky from the online publication Hayadan shared with Universe Today some interesting comments Bolden made about NASA's direction.
Click to continue…
Filed under: Constellation, NASA | 26 Comments »
Nuclear fusion. Credit: Lancaster University
For years, scientists have been trying to replicate the type of nuclear fusion that occurs naturally in stars in laboratories here on Earth in order to develop a clean and almost limitless source of energy. This week, two different research teams report significant headway in achieving inertial fusion ignition—a strategy to heat and compress a fuel that might allow scientists to harness the intense energy of nuclear fusion. One team used a massive laser system to test the possibility of heating heavy hydrogen atoms to ignite. The second team used a giant levitating magnet to bring matter to extremely high densities — a necessary step for nuclear fusion.
Click to continue…
Filed under: Physics, Science | 31 Comments »
