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While America seems to have delayed it’s Moon base ambitions, Japan seems to have no such plans; according to their own statements, they have absolutely no intention of letting perfectly good lunar lands go to waste. An ambitious plan of (just?) $2.2 billion investments is in the works at JAXA (Japan’s space agency), with the […]
The first touchable scientific results of the Herschel infrared space observatory are spectacular indeed; not only is it showing previously hidden details of star formation, but it also shows thousands of distant galaxies “building” stars with incredible energy and covering the Milky Way in wonderfully coloured star clouds. Not only are the images spectacular by […]
Barack Obama came out and said that it should be possible for NASA to send astronauts to Mars and bring them back safely by the mid 2030s. The US president said this while explaining the details of his plans with the US space agency at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mister Obama has set […]
The discovery of 9 new planets raises some serious questions on the matter of how planets are formed. Two astronomers from the University of California, Santa Barbara reported the discovery, and of them, two are spinning in the opposite direction the planets in our solar system are spinning. This, along with other recent studies of […]
Two years ago, researchers reported the strange movement of hundreds of galaxy clusters moving in the same direction at about 3.6 million kilometers per hour. Current spatial movement models can’t explain this in any way, so at the time, they launched a strange hypothesis: clusters are being tugged by the gravity of something outside our […]
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is already in its 7th year on Mars, and over the years it provided some quite useful information; researchers from NASA have been constantly working on ways to improve and optimize it by constantly uploading new software. Such is the case with the software they applied this winter, which makes […]
“This is a normal, temperate exoplanet just like dozens we already know, but this is the first whose properties we can study in depth,” says Claire Moutou, who is part of the international team of 60 astronomers that made the discovery. This discovery is absolutely mesmerizing, and it’s importance just can’t be overestimated. “It is […]
There are many things we have yet to find out about Saturn, but the Cassini probe has definitely shed some light on the planet, and will surely do the same in the following years. The most recent flyby showed a significant number of geysers just waiting to pop out from under the surface – even […]
Whether intelligent life exists in our universe is a long debated problem. But for some scientists, there’s something even more interesting than that: is there life in another universe? A definite answer is impossible, especially since it’s not even clear if such a universe exists, though researchers have speculated such an existence for more than […]
It’s NASA’s second launch in just 4 days (after Endeavour), and this time it’s about the most advanced solar observatory ever built. It was first placed on a shuttle station complex and it was orbiting the Atlantic when it was rocketed into space in an unmaned rocket. The Solar Dynamics Observatory (as it was named) […]
Pluto is so upset that it’s no longer a planet, that it’s turning all red with anger ! No, seriously. There’s been a whole lot of “Pluto-related news” these days including the 2006 chalking off of the planet list, and naming it a “dwarf planet”, and the news just gets better and better. Recently, astronomers […]
A new research published in Nature Physics showed that there may be oceans of diamonds (literally) on both Uranus and Neptune. The first ever study conducted on the melting point of diamond concluded that at that certain point, it behaves just like water, with the solid form floating in the liquid form (just imagine icebergs, […]
The Planet Researchers have long been interested in finding other planets that have approximately the same size as our mother earth, because it’s estimated that they have the biggest odds of hosting life in a significant diversity. However, out of the over 400 planets that have been discovered so far, the vast majority resembles Jupiter […]
The US-Japan Sukazu observatory reported the finding of some never-before seen embers from the high temperature fireballs that immediately follower the supernovae explosions. Even after thousands of years in which they haven’t been exposed to any heat source, gas within these stellar wrecks is 10.000 hotter than the Sun’s surface. “This is the first evidence […]
Star clusters are among the pretties things you can see, when it comes to astrophysical observations. Recently, ESO provided some amazing pictures of one of the most beautiful nestles ever to be seen, located deep in the constellation of Crux. The cluster is named Kappa Crucis Cluster and has been nicknamed ‘the jewel box’ (by […]
Ram pressure is the pressure exerted on a body when it passes through a fluid medium; this causes a drag force that is exerted on the body. The same pressure occurs when a galaxy (body) is moving through an intergalactic gas (fluid), and in this case, the ram pressure can sweep a significant part of […]
Hubble has had a lot of problems in recent days, but now the telescope we love the most is up an running, and in a great shape too. “This marks a new beginning for Hubble,” said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “The telescope was given an extreme makeover […]
Planet Mars will be the brightest we’ll (probably) ever have a chance to see it, and it will be as large as the moon, even for the naked eye ! I can’t even imagine what it will be like, but I bet the Red Planet will be absolutely spectacular, and it’s something you definitely don’t […]
It sounds like something pinned off a SciFi novel, but it seems like new developments in space exploration technology might make an Earth to Mars journey last as less as 39 days. The distance between Mars and Earth varies because of the different Sun revolution periods (365.25 days for Earth, and 686 days for Mars), […]
Mike Massimino hit the news in May as the first to “Tweet” in space. He began “tweeting” under the name “Astro Mike” while training for the STS-125 mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Soon nearly 250,000 people were following his Twitter feed. The reality is that Massimino probably wasn’t really “tweeting” at all, at […]
Stormy weather conditions may delay the launch of space shuttle Endeavour, currently scheduled for liftoff on Saturday, July 11. This comes on the heels of two delays last month caused by a hydrogen gas leak. A similar problem delayed the launch of space shuttle Discovery in March. The 16-day mission will feature a number of […]
NASA’s immediate future will likely have an emphasis on Earth science, using the International Space Station for research and development, and making space exploration more of an entrepreneurial venture. Those were the main themes touched on during the Senate confirmation hearing of Charles Bolden, President Obama’s nominee for NASA chief. When discussing space entrepreneurship, Bolden […]
ESO’s Very Large Telescope has shown something that scientists concluded is the signature of the explosion of the object furthest away from Earth we have found so far, a redshift of 8.2; it’s estimated that the explosion took place more than 13 billion years ago (!!), just 600 million years after the Big Bang. They […]
Get your 3D pictures on and join the show; hundreds of amazing pictures made by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have been made, and despite the fact that this is not the first mission to take 3D pictures, HiRISE is by far the most powerful camera to do this, due to […]
About 20 years ago, on March 13, 1989, the whole province of Quebec, Canada, suffered a blackout that by now has reached legendary proportions among astronomers and electrical engineers. Still, what made it reach this status wasn’t its proportions, but the fact that it was caused by the sun, or a solar storm to be […]
Unfortunately for some, the green visitor is not an alien coming to greet us but something else, even though it also comes from far, far away. On the 24th of February the comet Lulin will pass within 61 million kilometers of Earth, thus being able to be seen with the naked eye from some locations. […]
You may or may not have heard about blue stragglers; they are blue stars that are hotter and bluer than other stars with the same luminosity. Until now, it seemed that these stars defied most if not all of the standard stellar theories, but scientists now believe they have finally solved this stellar mistery. The […]
Well ladies and gentlemen, you’d better fasten your seat belts, because we’re in for quite a spin. The Milky Way is spinning a bit faster than scientists believed; with about 100.000 miles / hour that is. What does that mean, basically?? Well, we’re faster, heavier, and there’s a bigger chance that we’ll collide with… something. […]
Recently, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope discovered no more, no less than 12 pulsars, and it also detected gamma ray pulse from 18 others. These findings are forcing scientists to rethink what we know about dying stars, as they totally underestimated the power of these stellar cilinders. “We know of 1,800 pulsars, but until Fermi […]
Astronomy & Astrophysics has published spectroscopic observations of one of the hottest stars discovered so far – a white dwarf called KPD 0005+5106. The observations were made using the space-based Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE), showing that the temperature can reach 200 000 K at the surface of the star. Temperatures can get so high that […]
Two of the biggest and most impressive stars from our galaxy have been “surprised” in some really amazing poses by the the NASA/ESA Hubble telescope. Until now, a cloud of mystery surrounded them, but these pictures in greater detail than ever before. The pair of colossal stars (named WR 25 and Tr16-244, located within the […]
Beta Pictoris (β Pic / β Pictoris) is part of a group of hot young stars that have the same age and motion through stage. It’s best known for the fact that it’s surrounded by a dusty ‘debris’ disc. This disc is a result of collisions between planetary ’embryos’ and asteroids, or other such objects. […]
A while ago we were a bit worried about the future of Hubble, but it seems the people at NASA managed to once again do an amazing job, so the most well known telescope is back in business, and up to big things actually. Just a few days after it was brought back online, Hubble […]
As a proud student in geophysics, I can tell you that opal is hydrated silicon dioxide mineral with many astounding properties, but it’s also water hydrated. Since water hydrated minerals have been found on Mars we are led to the logic conclusion that when these minerals was formed, there was water on Mars. Opals have […]
According to Murphy’s Law, all great discoveries happen by mistake. This is not the case here, but scientists had the opportunity to observe something they weren’t expecting at all. Astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz had the fortune of witnessing the birth of a young galaxy. They were the first to observe the onset […]
Chandrayaan-1 is the name of the first mission India has ever launched towards the moon, and it was launches succesfully in the morning of October 22, from inside their country. This started the journey which will also imply a major manoeuvre – the lunar orbit insertion – about 2 weeks from the launch date. After […]
Despite the fact that they have worked round the clock for fixing Hubble, it seems NASA engineers have once again hit a snag and they’re currently trying to figure out what is the next step. The telescope stopped sending pictures three weeks ago, and at first it was believed that it wouldn’t take that long […]
A very small asteroid exploded over the continent of Africa this week, confirming the prediction of astronomers. Despite the fact that nobody has seen and photographed the asteroid due to the fact that it entered in a very remote area, it was detected with an infrasound array in Kenya; it exploded without striking the Earth. […]
Using the RHESSI spacecraft, scientists managed to calculate the Sun’s roundness with a level of precision that surpasses anything of this type that has been attempted before. They found that the star which the Eart rotates around is not quite a sphere, but it has a thin “cantaloupe skin”. This skin causes the equatorial radius […]
Chinese researchers confirmed the theory that they are building an “impossible” space drive, and at this stage they are building a demonstration version; if things go according to their plans, this could revolutionize space exploration and the economy of satellites, giving China a significant military and economical advantage over other countries. This year, “Emdrive” (short […]
A few days ago, something remarkable has been captured by NASA’s telescopes, as an unusual set of Gamma rays were picked up by the Swifst satellite. What’s so remarkable about the find is that the respective burst of Gamma rays is the farthest such discovered, and, according to NASA’s specialists, originated from an explosion near […]
Less than a year from now, in 2009, NASA is going to launch a whole new generation of spacecraft and launch vehicle system. The test flight is called Ares I-X and it will bring scientists even closer to the exploration goals they have set for themselves. The main test objectives are focused on dynamics of […]
Our old Sun has broken a milestone that has not happened for almost a hundred years, as an entire month has passed without a single sun spot being noted. This is relevant because many climatologists believe there is a tight connection between solar magnetic activity which is responsable for the sun spots and climate on […]
Astronauts definitely don’t have it easy; preparing and training for most of your life, to go on a mission that is dangerous in most cases, and that has many difficulties to say the least. But perhaps the most interesting aspect in the life of an astronaut is eating. Because there’s not any room for your […]
Actually, it’s not about the brightest star of all, but the brightest star in our galaxy. It seems there’s a new contender for the title of Milky Way brightest star; it’s near its dusty center, and infrared observations performed by NASA have revealed how bright it is by piercing the dust that surrounds it. The […]
Scientists have believed for years that the moon doesn’t have water, only to find that its interior proved them wrong, challenging our current understanding on how the satellite was formed The current most accepted theory is that it formed in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object.But if this had been the case, […]
It’s not a bird, it’s not a planet, it’s not Jupiter… it’s super earth. Actually, there’s 3 of them. What are they? Well they’re three planets that astrophysicists have found orbiting the same star. They were located with the HARPS instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s 3.6-meter telescope at La Silla, Chile.These Super Earths are […]
The Phoenix Lander was definitely a marking moment for scientists and researchers, who now have the opportunity of actually seeing what they could have just speculated about before. For example, just take a look at this picture the probe sent back on Friday. Phoenix scientist Ray Arvidson said there may be ice directly […]
The ball aproaches the field and… touchdown! NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander survived the fiery dive into Mars’ atmosphere Sunday to make a three-point landing in the planet’s arctic regions. This is absolutely a fantastic achievement which included an impressive amount of work and so many people that struggled for this common magnificent objective. “It looks […]
Let’s start with the beginning, shall we ? A black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape its pull after having fallen past its event horizon. That means that electromagnetic radiation (e.g. visible light) is unable to break away from the […]
