What’s Up this Week: August 14 – August 20, 2006
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! I hope everyone had an excellent Perseid weekend? With the Moon further and further from early evening,…
Nothing But Rings
This photograph is a close-up view of Saturn's A ring taken by Cassini. Look closely and you'll see that the…
Hourglass-Shaped Magnetic Field Discovered
Astronomers have finally discovered an object that has long been theorized: an hourglass-shaped magnetic field in a star forming region.…
Book Review: Beyond Earth
Does humanity have a destiny? Are we to accomplish a task before ending as a species, or do we perhaps…
Satellites Measure Melting Greenland Ice
NASA's GRACE satellites have measured an increasing rate of ice melt in Greenland. According to new analysis by researchers at…
James Van Allen Dies
Renowned space scientist Dr. James A. Van Allen died this morning at the age of 91. Although he had a…
Astrophoto: The Bubble Nebula (NGC 7635) by Karel Teuwen
Every clear evening, as twilight dissolves into night, untold thousands of telescopes scattered across the globe turn toward the great…
Rigel Passes Behind Saturn
NASA's Cassini spacecraft captured this image of the star Rigel passing behind Saturn's atmosphere. Rigel is well known to astronomers,…
Washed Out Perseids Will Peak on Friday
One of the best meteor showers of the year - the Perseids - will get washed out by a nearly…
Chandra Confirms the Hubble Constant
Nearly every single astronomical measurement depends on the Hubble constant, a number that calculates the expansion of the Universe. NASA's…