• Asteroids!

    Updated: 2010-08-29 15:13:14
    Hat tip to Don — this is really good. I’ve watched this over and over focusing on one thing or another, in the beginning you can follow individual asteroids.  The orbital elements were taken from the ‘astorb.dat’ data created by Ted Bowell and associates at http://www.naic.edu/~nolan/astorb.html. Scott Manley did a nice job putting things together.

  • Wow!

    Updated: 2010-08-27 21:24:54
    Take a look at this; from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, it’s the clearest, most detailed image of a sunspot taken in natural light: Amazing.  This is from the New Solar Telescope (NST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), using adaptive optics.  From the press release: NJIT Distinguished Professor Philip R. Goode and [...]

  • Why are sunspots a source of radio emissions?

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    Why sunspots are a strong source of radio emissions and what information those emissions carry will be the focus of an invited talk by NJIT Research Professor Jeongwoo Lee tomorrow at the International Astronomical Union Symposium on the Physics of Sun and Star Spots in Ventura, CA. http://www.csun.edu/physicsandastronomy/IAUS273/ The event numbers among the top gatherings in the U.S. for people studying sunspots and related phenomena........

  • Two Planets Transiting Same Star

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered the first confirmed planetary system with more than one planet transiting the same star. Today's announcement of the discovery of the two planets, Kepler 9b and 9c, is based on seven months of observations of more than 156,000 stars being monitored for subtle brightness changes as part of an ongoing search for Earth-like planets outside our solar system. Researchers designated the sun-like star Kepler-9........

  • Stellar fireworks are ablaze in galaxy NGC 4449

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    Hundreds of thousands of vibrant blue and red stars are visible in this new image of galaxy NGC 4449 taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Hot bluish white clusters of massive stars are scattered throughout the galaxy, interspersed with numerous dustier reddish regions of current star formation. Massive dark clouds of gas and dust are silhouetted against the flaming starlight........

  • Cluster makes a shocking discovery

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    ESA's Cluster was in the right place and time to make a shocking discovery. The four spacecraft encountered a shock wave that kept breaking and reforming - predicted only in theory. On 24 January 2001, Cluster's spacecraft observed shock reformation in the Earth's magnetosphere, predicted only in theory, over 20 years ago. Cluster provided the first opportunity ever to observe such an event, the details of which have been published in a paper on 9 March this year........

  • Nongreen Plants On Other Planets

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    NASA scientists believe they have found a way to predict the color of plants on planets in other solar systems. Green, yellow or even red-dominant plants may live on extra-solar planets, according to scientists whose two scientific papers appear in the recent issue of the journal, Astrobiology. The scientists studied light absorbed and reflected by organisms on Earth, and determined that if astronomers were to look at the light given off by planets circling distant stars, they might predict that some planets have mostly non-green plants........

  • Back to the Moon

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    Of the two luminaries that dominate our sky, it is the moon that is of particular interest to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) project. The LRO will travel to the moon in late fall 2008, mapping the surface to help pave the way for humans to return. It will help prepare us for extended surface exploration on the moon and for subsequent missions to Mars and other distant destinations. Lunar surface exploration will help us to practice living, working, and gathering science data before we venture into riskier territory........

  • Most Energetic Form Of Light

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    n 2002, when astronomers first detected cosmic gamma rays - the most energetic form of light known - coming from the constellation Cygnus they were surprised and perplexed. The region lacked the extreme electromagnetic fields that they thought were required to produce such energetic rays. But now a team of theoretical physicists propose a mechanism that can explain this mystery and may also help account for another type of cosmic ray, the high-energy nuclei that rain down on Earth in the billions........

  • James Webb Space Telescope Testing

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    A model of the James Webb Space Telescope's Mid-InfraRed Instrument will be tested before Christmas at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, England to ensure the final instrument can see infrared light. Observing the universe in the infrared light portion of the spectrum is important because a number of objects researchers want to observe in space are far too cold to radiate at shorter wavelengths that can be seen as visible light, but they radiate strongly in infrared light........

  • Fifty Times sharper than Hubble

    Updated: 2010-08-27 06:00:28
    M87, the central galaxy of the Virgo cluster in a distance of only 50 million light years, was observed by Yuri Kovalev from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronony (MPIfR) in Bonn and colleagues with the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) at 2 cm wavelength. The resulting image provides details down to a resolution of one milli-arcsecond, corresponding to a linear resolution of only three light months. The new image of the inner radio jet of M87 shows a highly collimated jet which appears limb-brightened, and also a faint counter-jet. It is unprecedented in its combination of sensitivity and spatial resolution........

  • Newly Found Solar System

    Updated: 2010-08-26 21:49:13
    This is cool stuff,  astronomers using the ESO HARPS instrument have discovered a planetary system with at least five planets and possibly a couple more around a Sun-like star. The star is called HD10180 and is located 127 light-years away in the constellation Hydrus. Here’s the press release from the ESO: “We have found what [...]

  • Astromovies

    Updated: 2010-08-26 00:35:00
    Astronomy Blog You are : in Astronomy Blog archive Astromovies An astronomy blog usually but not always based in the UK . Pondering questions such as What is in an exoplanet name Astromovies This morning , on Twitter , astronomer adam_avison started the astronomy-themed hashtag astromovies The idea was to think of astronomical versions of movie titles and it has got pretty popular . I thought I'd share some of those that I . liked Dial M for Maunder telescoper Gone With the Solar Wind scibuff Lyra Lyra allinthegutter : . N Blazar Runner jen_gupta Keck-Ass telescoper The BL-Lac of the Mohicans allinthegutter . N Scrodingers List huwmjames 20,000 lightyears under the sea ryanastron The Dark Matter Crystal astropixie Pretty in Infrared astropixie Lyman-Alpha Forrest Gump samb8s Some Like It

  • Jupiter Impact

    Updated: 2010-08-24 19:45:59
    Jupiter has had another impact as you can see in the video, this one on August 20th.  Hard to say what the impacting body was.  There weren’t any black plumes so it could be the density/mass wasn’t like the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet (D/1993 F2) of 1994. Then again trajectory and velocity needs to be figured [...]

  • Coming attractions from outer space

    Updated: 2010-08-24 01:48:52
    Space.com: NASA to reveal big news from planet-hunting probe Slashdot: Nonprofit rocketeers get set for suborbital space shot Popular Mechanics: How will post-shuttle astronauts get into orbit? QuantumG's Blog: What will it take to go to an asteroid ... or to Mars?

  • Inside a celestial super-volcano

    Updated: 2010-08-24 00:43:56
    A "super-volcano" is erupting out in the Virgo Cluster, in the form of a supermassive black hole churning away at the center of the galaxy M87. And although it looks nothing like an earthly volcano, there's a similarity in the workings of the celestial and earthly eruptions.

  • The Tiny Terrors of Mars

    Updated: 2010-08-23 20:48:18
    Looking quite a bit like the captured asteroids they probably are, the Martian moons were predicted by the astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and written into the plot of Gulliver’s Travels in 1726. The tiny Martian moons Phobos and Deimos were discovered by Asaph Hall in August, 1877.  Deimos on the 12th, Phobos on the 18th.  [...]

  • Vodcast from the Salisbury Star Party 2010

    Updated: 2010-08-20 18:28:43
    Last Friday I visited the Salisbury Star Party, in Wiltshire, to film a report for an episode of the Sky at Night Magazine vodcast. It was a great day of filming (despite the occasional rain shower) and everyone I talked to was really friendly and enthusiastic. The video* is now online and I’ve embedded it [...]

  • Podcast: Fun from the Sun

    Updated: 2010-08-20 04:50:44
    This month Michael (that’s me), Doug and Mike get together on Skype to discuss the Sun. If I may have a moment, the Sun is unquestionably the most important thing in our universe. Every scrap of energy we have on this planet comes from the Sun. It’s big, bright and hugely important to the evolution [...]

  • Cassini Images from this Weekend’s Enceladus, Tethys and Dione Flybys!

    Updated: 2010-08-16 04:55:51
    new pics from Saturn sys. –Ben Cassini Images from this Weekend’s Enceladus, Tethys and Dione Flybys! August 14, 2010 Dear Friends and Colleagues, Just down on the ground today … images from Cassini’s close flybys of Tethys, Dione and Enceladus this weekend. Go to … http://www.ciclops.org/view_event/140/Enceladus_Tethys_and_Dione_Rev_136_Raw_Preview … and see some gorgeous raw images of these [...]

  • Perseids meteor shower - Wet wet wet!

    Updated: 2010-08-15 10:38:46
    Nothing, not a sausage. As I feared, it was rainy with just the odd passing gap in the clouds to peer through, but even then saw nothing, but with a Zenithal Hourly Rate predicted of 80-120, i.e. in theory a meteor every 30 to 60 seconds, we would hope to have seen something. Saturday night [...]

  • An “Island Universe” in the Coma Cluster

    Updated: 2010-08-12 08:07:15
    Nice eye candy. –Ben An “Island Universe” in the Coma Cluster A long-exposure Hubble Space Telescope image shows a majestic face-on spiral galaxy located deep within the Coma Cluster of galaxies, which lies 320 million light-years away in the northern constellation Coma Berenices. The galaxy, known as NGC 4911, contains rich lanes of dust and [...]

  • meteorwatch.org

    Updated: 2010-08-12 03:17:49
    interesting site and tweet map. –Ben http://meteorwatch.org/ http://meteorwatch.org/meteor-map/#twitter-feed-map

  • 5 tips for making the most of the Perseids

    Updated: 2010-08-10 23:17:53
    The Perseid meteor shower is currently putting on a show in the night sky, as the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by the comet Swift-Tuttle. The shower is expected to reach a peak sometime between the evening of the 12 of August and the morning of the 13 August. Even so, it’s [...]

  • Podcast: Lucas Macri on the Extragalactic Distance Scale

    Updated: 2010-07-21 14:20:11
    We have a new podcast on the feed and once again it is the extended version of our most recent contribution to The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast. Michael Koppelman interviews Dr. Luca Macri of Texas A&M University about his work on the extragalactic distance scale. You can subscribe with RSS and/or iTunes with the [...]

  • Astronomer H-R diagram

    Updated: 2010-07-21 00:36:00
    Astronomy Blog You are : in Astronomy Blog archive Astronomer H-R diagram An astronomy blog usually but not always based in the UK . Pondering questions such as What is in an exoplanet name Astronomer H-R diagram Most people who've done an astronomy course will have heard of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram It was developed to show the relationships between the temperature or colour of a star and its luminosity . The other week I saw a tweet referring to someone as an astronomy media star This interesting stellar classification got me thinking about an alternative version of the H-R diagram . In my alternate reality I imagined a version classifying astronomers and so , after a little consultation with other astronomers thanks Sarah , Tess , Mike , Paul and Amanda and some free time I

  • Dazzling Display of Promethean Force on Saturn’s F Ring

    Updated: 2010-07-20 17:06:06
    more cool ring structures. –Ben ————————————- July 20, 2010 Dear Friends and Colleagues, Today, the Cassini Imaging Team is proud to release some outstanding new image mosaics and computer simulations of everyone’s favorite ring, Saturn’s F ring: the narrow, dynamic, and extraordinarily complex set of strands of ring material caught between the orbits of its [...]

  • Astrofest 2010

    Updated: 2010-07-19 18:42:07
    step away from the computer and go ‘LOOK’ at something. –Ben ================================ from : Jim Cuca wglogowski@gmail.com Dear astronomy enthusiast: The Chicago Astronomical Society invites you to attend our annual star party, Astrofest, which will be held September 10-11, 2010 at Vana’s near Kankakee, Illinois. Registration forms and related information are available at http://www.chicagoastro.org/index_files/Page345.htm The [...]

  • At home with the Herschels

    Updated: 2010-07-18 01:26:56
    Herschel’s garden, from where he found the planet Uranus. Credit: Will Gater Yesterday I paid a visit to the former home of one of my all time astronomy heroes. Number 19, New King Street in Bath was the home of Sir William Herschel, one of the greatest astronomers this country, and indeed the world, has [...]

  • OSTP to Co-Host “Astronomy Night on the National Mall”

    Updated: 2010-07-15 17:53:34
    another astro event in DC. WOW! –Ben OSTP to Co-Host “Astronomy Night on the National Mall” OSTP, in conjunction with Hofstra University, will co-sponsor a free, open to the public star party July 15 on the National Mall in Washington, DC. If you are near the DC area in come enjoy close-up views of the [...]

  • Noctilucent cloud display 9 July 2010

    Updated: 2010-07-10 11:08:00
    Around 10:30pm last night I started to see reports coming in on Twitter of a large and bright noctilucent cloud (NLC) display appearing across much of the country. Poking my head out the window I was, to my dismay, greeted with thick uniform cloud lit by light pollution. Hoping for the best, I checked on [...]

  • The sparkling treasures of the summer Milky Way

    Updated: 2010-07-06 19:49:15
    The Milky Way over Dartmoor (click to see a bigger version). Credit: Will Gater I thought I’d  just briefly share this image with you all and give you a quick heads-up for some sights to look out for in the night sky at the moment. I took this image last weekend from one of my [...]

  • Planck All-sky

    Updated: 2010-07-05 09:05:00
    Astronomy Blog You are : in Astronomy Blog archive Planck All-sky An astronomy blog usually but not always based in the UK . Pondering questions such as What is in an exoplanet name Planck All-sky This morning , the European Space Agency and the Planck Consortium released the Planck satellite s first view of the entire sky . . Behold A false-colour image of the whole sky as seen by Planck . The dust throughout the Galaxy is shown in blue . In the background , the mottled yellow features are relic radiation , called the Cosmic Microwave Background , which contains information about the earliest stages of the Universe . This image is a low-resolution version of the full data set . : CREDIT ESA , Planck LFI and HFI Consortia 2010 Planck was launched on May 14th 2009 and , after three months

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