Deep Impact’s Plume Was Bigger Than Expected
When Deep Impact's impactor slammed into Comet Tempel 1 on July 4, 2005, it released a tremendous cloud of fine…
What’s Up This Week – July 11 – July 17, 2005
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It will be busy skies this week as the Moon goes through a series of occultations for…
Book Review: Astronomy Hacks
Hacking sounds crass. It manifests images of short cuts, jobs poorly done and people most interested in just finishing, no…
Japanese Astro-E2 Satellite Launched
The Japanese space agency JAXA announced the successful launch of the ASTRO-E2 X-ray satellite on Sunday. A Japanese-built M-5 rocket…
How Much Material Was Blasted Off By Deep Impact?
One of the instruments tuned into Deep Impact is NASA's Swift satellite, normally designed to detect and analyze gamma ray…
Transit Method Turns Up Planets
Of the 130 extrasolar planets discovered to date, most have been found using the radial velocity method, where a planet…
No, Mars Won’t Look as Big as the Moon
There's a new rumour going around the Internet. Maybe an excited friend has sent an email about a once in…
Shuttle Exhaust Can Make Clouds in Antarctica
A new study by NASA and the Naval Research Institute has found that exhaust from the space shuttle can create…
Astrophoto: Pluto by Charles Bell
Charles Bell demonstrates that amateur astronomers can photograph Pluto with their backyard telescopes. Charles used a 12" Meade 200LX-GPS with…
Microquasar Puzzles Astronomers
An international team of astronomers have discovered a strange source of high energy gamma rays. The object is called LS5039,…