What one supernovae looks like after the boom.
What one supernovae looks like after the boom.
Tag: astronomy
A tranquil spiral galaxy, home to supernovae.
A tranquil spiral galaxy, home to supernovae. And a beautiful image too!
One of Kepler’s reaction wheels — used to orient the space telescope — has failed.
Bad news: One of Kepler’s four reaction wheels — used to orient the space telescope — has failed.
Kepler only needs three wheels to function – one to control the probe’s motion along each axis – and the probe resumed its observations on 20 July. “Kepler is functioning very well on three reaction wheels,” says mission manager Roger Hunter of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. If the glitch can’t be fixed, though, Kepler will be left without a backup wheel. “This is reducing the odds of making the mission go as long as we can,” says Kepler chief scientist William Borucki of NASA Ames, who doubts that Kepler could point accurately enough to look for transiting planets if reduced to two reaction wheels. “It was a disappointing surprise to find this wheel stopped so early.”
Watching a big asteroid zip past the earth, live
Watching a big asteroid zip past the earth, live.
Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope.
Some spectacular images of galaxies from the new Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT).
Funded privately by the Discovery channel, the DCT has a primary mirror 4.3 meters wide, or about 170 inches, almost as large as the Hale Telescope on Palomar Mountain. This is a world class telescope which will do real research, and it was built the old-fashioned way, with private money donated to a private observatory in exchange for publicity and good will.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have found the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have found the most distant spiral galaxy ever seen.
Scientists have failed to detect one of the leading theoretical candidates for dark matter.
Null result: Scientists have failed to detect one of the leading theoretical candidates for dark matter.
Astronomers have discovered the first exoplanet smaller than Earth.
Astronomers have discovered the first exoplanet smaller than Earth.
The University of Central Florida has detected what could be its first planet, only two-thirds the size of Earth and located right around the corner, cosmically speaking, at a mere 33-light years away. The exoplanet candidate called UCF 1.01, is close to its star, so close it goes around the star in 1.4 days. The planet’s surface likely reaches temperatures of more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The discoverers believe that it has no atmosphere, is only two-thirds the gravity of Earth and that its surface may be volcanic or molten.
What is especially remarkable about this discovery is that the scientists used the Spitzer Space Telescope to do it, detecting the planet’s transits across the star’s face, just like Kepler. Spitzer was not designed to be able to do this.
Hubble has discovered a fifth moon orbiting Pluto.
Using the Hubble Space Telescope astronomers have discovered a fifth moon orbiting Pluto.
Five moons, eh? That’s pretty good for something that isn’t supposed to be a planet.
A hotel for stargazers
Astronomers have found four different binary star systems with the stars orbiting so close to each other that they complete their orbits in less than four hours, orbits that astronomers had previously believed “impossible.”
The uncertainty of science: Astronomers have found four different binary star systems with the stars orbiting so close to each other that they complete their orbits in less than four hours, orbits that astronomers had previously believed “impossible.”
Inexplicably, a dust disk detected around a star about 460 light years away has vanished in the last two years.
The uncertainty of science: Inexplicably, a dust disk detected around a star about 460 light years away has vanished in just two years.