A cyclone on Saturn has now lasted more than five years, since scientists started tracking it closely in 2004 with the arrival of Cassini in orbit around Saturn.
Scientists have used data from Cassini to identify what they think are ice volcanoes on Titan. The two volcanoes, each about 3000 feet high, are located near the equator and appear to resemble the volcanoes on Earth, with a central crater on top of cone-like peak and finger-like flows coming down the sides from the crater. The lava here, however, is not molten rock, but water.
Time for some astronomical sightseeing! This image, produced from data taken by both the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, shows what astronomers call a supernova remnant. The bubble, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud 160 thousand light years away, is thought to be 23 light years across and expanding about 11 million miles per hour. It is thought that the supernova itself took place around 1600. That we have no record of it is probably because it was only visible in the southern hemisphere, where few records of such events were being kept at that time. More here, including the image using only Hubble data as well as a video animation that is quite stunning.
After a 33 year journey, Voyager 1 has detected evidence that it is about to enter interstellar space.
Freedom of religion alert! An astronomer has sued the University of Kentucky, claiming he was denied a job running its observatory because of his Christian faith. More here.
Scientists have created a computer simulation describing the violent origin of Saturn’s rings, with moons being stripped of their ice as they death spiral into Saturn.
Note that this is only a theory, illustrated by a computer model. Though it is fascinating however!
Venus has a Moon?
The first carbon-rich exoplanet discovered.
Astronomers are proposing that an early-warning system be built to warn us a week in advance should an asteroid be heading our way.
The telescope in an airplane flew its first observation mission today.
There are more stars in heaven and earth than have been dreamt of by scientists, three times more it turns out. And they are all dwarves!
Cassini pinpoints the hot spots in the cracks on Enceladus.
How one astronomer became the unofficial exoplanet record keeper.
Jupiter’s south equatorial stripe appears to be reappearing.
The struggle to find $1.5 billion to save NASA’s astrophysics budget as well as the overbudget James Webb Space Telescope. Note that this article once again allows a variety of NASA managers and scientists push the false story that Webb is a replacement for Hubble. It is not. Hubble looks at the universe mostly in optical wavelengths, as our eyes do. Webb will be an infrared telescope. It will do wonderful things, but different things than Hubble.
The numbering ain’t really that precise, but today scientists announced the discovery of the 500th extrasolar planet.
Scientists are once again debating whether Pluto really is a planet.
A glimpse at the universe before the Big Bang?
It came from another galaxy.
Astronomer and comet/asteroid tracker Brian Marsden has died. Marsden was the kind of gentleman that makes writing astronomy articles so much fun. Even when I was a newby science writer back in the early 90s he was always willing to answer any of my questions, and give me blunt and honest answers to boot. R.I.P.
The dying stars that look like jellyfish.
Astronomers have identified a dozen new binary star systems, where the two stars are tiny white dwarfs. Of even more interest is that a half dozen are spiraling into each other and will eventually merge, the ensuing collision likely producing a supernova explorsion.
Scientists have exhumed the body of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in order to do a new autopsy.
The James Webb Space Telescope is in trouble again, requiring an addition $1.5 billion and an additional year to get finished.
The uncertainty of science! Eris, the distant planet in the Kuiper belt, had been thought to be larger than Pluto. Now astronomers have doubts.
The superEarth orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581 in its habitable zone does exist, according to a preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph website.
