Astronomers from the University of Hawaii have taken new images of the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis in an effort to refine their understanding of its orbital path.
A mature galaxy cluster has been found by astronomers at a time when the universe is thought to be only a quarter of its present age.
This discovery could be very significant, since astronomers think mature galaxy clusters need time to form, and shouldn’t exist in the early universe. “If further observations find many more [of these clusters] then this may mean that our understanding of the early Universe needs to be revised.”
Did you hear the news? Scientists have solved the mystery of the missing sunspots!
You didn’t? Well, here’s some headlines and stories that surely prove it:
The trouble is that every one of these headlines is 100 percent wrong. The research, based on computer models, only found that when the plasma flow from the equator to the poles beneath the Sun’s surface slows down, the number of sunspots declines.
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The sponge-like Saturn moon. Key quote:
Hyperion measures about 250kms across; it rotates chaotically and has a density so low that it might house a vast system of caverns inside.
R.I.P. Leif J. Robinson, who served as editor of Sky & Telescope for twenty years, passed away Sunday at the age of 71 at his home in Costa Rica.
Take a gander at this spectacular image of the shuttle approaching ISS, taken by an amateur astronomer from the ground!
More problems for the James Webb Space Telescope: The detector arrays for several instruments are deteriorating, even as they sit on the shelf. And remember, the 2014 launch date is probably going to be delayed until 2016. Key quote:
“As you get further and further out with [the launch date], it really raises questions about how far down the [integration and test] process you go for the instruments … and how long you have to store all that before you actually launch,” [Webb program director Rick Howard] told the NASA Advisory Council’s astrophysics subcommittee during a Feb. 16 public meeting here. “And that just makes everybody even more nervous about this problem than anything else.”
A new record! On January 19, the Pan-Starrs telescope in Hawaii discovered 19 near-earth asteroids, the most for a single night of asteroid-hunting by anyone.
The uncertainty of science: New evidence suggests that rather than postulate the existence of dark energy and dark matter, scientists need simply to revise their theories of gravity.
The uncertainty of science: The discoverers of the possibly habitable exoplanet Gliese 581g defend their work against recent science attacks.
According to its manager, the budget troubles of the James Webb Space Telescope will likely keep it on the ground until 2016.
This is terrible news for space-based astrophysics. Until Webb gets launched, NASA will have no money for any other space telescope project. And since all the space telescopes presently in orbit are not expected to be operating at the end of the decade, by 2020 the U.S. space astronomy program will essentially be dead.
Then again, there is the private sector, as Google Lunar X Prize is demonstrating.
More news from Stardust: scientists have now identified what they think is the crater produced by Deep Impact’s impact in 2005. Key quote:
The images revealed a 150-metre-wide crater at the Deep Impact collision point that was not present in 2005. The crater is a subtle feature in the images, but it appears consistently in multiple views from the spacecraft. “So I feel very confident that we did find the [impact] site,” said mission member Peter Schultz of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, at a press briefing on Tuesday. The crater’s features are “subdued” rather than sharply defined, like those of craters made in hard materials like rock. “The message is: This surface of the comet where we hit is very weak,” said Schultz. The crater also has a small mound in its middle, indicating that some of the material thrown up by the impact was drawn by the comet’s gravity back down into the crater, he said: “In a way, it partly buried itself.”
The images from Stardust’s flyby of Comet Tempel 1 are now available. I think the image below is the best, as it shows many details of the presently inactive comet surface. Scientists will need a bit of time now to compare these features with those imaged during the flyby of Deep Impact back in 2005.
The first images from Stardust of Comet Tempel 1 have been released. More to come later today.
Update: some glitch is delaying the download of the images. Instead of arriving as programmed, they are arriving in the order taken.
How to watch Stardust’s Comet Tempel 1 flyby tonight.
While politicians argue budgets here on Earth, the NASA probe Stardust is zooming in on its flyby of Comet Tempel 1 tonight.
Which exoplanet should we go to first?
On February 4 a very small asteroid, about a yard in diameter, zipped past the Earth at a distance of only 3,400 miles, closer than any previously recorded asteroid.
Exoplanets galore! The Kepler team announced today the discovery of 68 Earth-sized planets, five in the habitable zone. Key quote:
The discoveries are part of several hundred new planet candidates identified in new Kepler mission science data, released on Tuesday, Feb. 1. The findings increase the number of planet candidates identified by Kepler to-date to 1,235. Of these, 68 are approximately Earth-size; 288 are super-Earth-size; 662 are Neptune-size; 165 are the size of Jupiter and 19 are larger than Jupiter. Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized. The remaining 49 habitable zone candidates range from super-Earth size — up to twice the size of Earth — to larger than Jupiter.
On Monday Stardust did a final mid-course correction in anticipation of its February 14 fly-by of of Comet Tempel 1.
The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, WISE, has completed its four month extended mission, finishing a scan of the heavens that discovered more than 33,000 asteroids and comets.
Chicken Little was right! The sky is falling!
Here we go again: NASA’s already overbudget Mars Science Laboratory rover is in need of even more cash.
