Space and astronomy news
[/caption] Note: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, for ten days, Universe Today will feature highlights from two year slices of the life of the Hubble, focusing on its achievements as an astronomical observatory. Today’s article looks at the period April 1998 to April 2000. In October 1998, Hubble complemented the …
Continue reading “Hubble’s 10th Birthday Gift: Measurement of the Hubble Constant”
Note: To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope, for ten days, Universe Today will feature highlights from two year slices of the life of the Hubble, focusing on its achievements as an astronomical observatory. Today’s article looks at the period April 1994 to April 1996. After the famous Apollo 8 “Earthrise” image, …
[/caption] (Editor’s Note: Ken Kremer is in Florida for Universe Today covering the upcoming Endeavour launch attempt.) The six person crew for the STS 130 flight of shuttle Endeavour arrived at the Kennedy Space Center late this evening, Tuesday Feb. 2. The astronauts flew here from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard the Shuttle …
Continue reading “Endeavour astronauts arrive at Cape for launch of Tranquility”
Object Name: Messier 105 Alternative Designations: M105, NGC 3379 Object Type: E1 Elliptical Galaxy Constellation: Leo Right Ascension: 10 : 47.8 (h:m) Declination: +12 : 35 (deg:m) Distance: 38000 (kly) Visual Brightness: 9.3 (mag) Apparent Dimension: 2.0 (arc min) Locating Messier 105: Begin your starhop for this great galaxy by identifying Alpha Leonis (Regulus), the …
The newly enlarged crew of Team ISS sends New Year’s greetings welcoming in 2010 to all earthlings over this holiday weekend. “We thank you for your support and interest in this current chapter of human exploration and discovery. We wish you a very fruitful and happy New Year”. New Year’s is one of the few …
Continue reading “New Year’s Greetings from TEAM ISS and 2010 ISS Calendar”
Navigating a spacecraft through the heavens has been compared to sailing a ship on the open seas or driving a vehicle on a long, cross country journey. Analogies are necessary, since spacecraft navigation is performed by a relatively small sampling of the human race, and the job usually involves doing things that have never been …
Continue reading “The Navigators: How We Fly Spacecraft Around the Solar System”
Over the weeks we’ve looked at a lot of curious objects and today is no exception. NGC 6302 is often called the “Bug Nebula”, but its resemblance to an insect isn’t what makes it unique – it’s the complex structure. Deep inside this bipolar planetary nebula lay an unseen star… One of the hottest objects …
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a very incredible weekend? The action begins on Friday as we take you on a guided tour of the lunar surface. On Saturday, celebrate Astronomy Day with a very special unaided eye sky event and a return to the Moon. No rest for the wicked on Sunday… Because …
Continue reading “The Weekend SkyWatcher’s Forecast: May 9-11, 2008”
Scientists from the MESSENGER mission continue to analyze the data from the spacecraft’s first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008. Initial data about the planet’s gravity field grabbed the science team’s attention, as the actual gravity data differed from predictions based on the Mariner 10 flyby in 1975. Any unknowns in Mercury’s gravity will …
Continue reading “Gravity Anomaly Challenges MESSENGER Mission”
Space shuttle Discovery now sits majestically out on launch pad 39A, preparing for the upcoming STS-124 mission to the International Space Station. With the shuttle program slated to terminate in 2010, there’s a limited amount of times we’ll see that sight again: a space shuttle will crawl out to the pad only 10 more times …