The DAWN spacecraft crossed the inner limit of the asteroid belt for the last time on November 13, 2009 on its way to the asteroids Ceres and Vesta. The inner limit is defined as the greatest distance Mars travels from the Sun and is equal to 1.666 astronomical units.
The trip will be almost two more [...]Congrats to the crew and welcome home!
In case you missed the landing, I managed to record it despite myself
STS-129 Landing (Atlantis)
Current Status (1st opportunity @ KSC): GO
Deorbit Burn: 08:37 EST – The go for burn has been given
Landing: 09:44 EST
NASA TV Stills reload page to refresh image Webcam Image courtesy:
NOAA’s Forecast:
Today: Sunny, with a high near 64. Northwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
To keep [...]Oh behalf of Marian and myself, I’d like to wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving.
I know we have many-many readers not in the states, you should know we are very thankful for all of you coming here and reading our stuff.
Peace and good thoughts to all of you no matter where you are.
Kind of a follow-up to Marian’s post of the other day. Brown dwarfs are REALLY cool!
The Spitzer press release:
This image shows two young brown dwarfs, objects that fall somewhere between planets and stars in terms of their temperature and mass. Brown dwarfs are cooler and less massive than stars, never igniting the nuclear fires that [...]
Before I get going to far: The shuttle Atlantis has departed from the ISS and will be heading home to a landing on Friday. The shuttle program is going to end pretty soon and you won’t have many more chances to see the pair crossing the sky. To find out when you can see them, [...]
Scientific American: New theory would topple space-time
NPR: Darwin's 'Origin' still stirs debate after 150 years
Science @ NASA: Mystery of solar tsunami solved New Scientist: Orion's dark secret ...(read more)
Here’s a new image from the November 21st Enceladus flyby by the Cassini spacecraft. The unprocessed image shows the southern polar region and the jets of water vapor and other particles coming from the fissures on the surface.
There is another image (click here) showing a close view of some of the ridges and fractures [...]
CollectSpace: Hubble instruments become museum artifacts Slashdot: After 35 years, Arecibo talks to E.T. again
Science News: Climate might be right for a deal
Chandra Blog: Carnival of Space 130 ...(read more)
NASA / STScI
The galaxies NGC 2207 (left) and IC 2163 are entangled in a picture from the Hubble Space Telescope. Such mergers are the focus of Galaxy Zoo's latest project.
Galaxy Zoo's latest online research project is a "cosmic slot machine" that asks users to match up simulations of galactic smash-ups with pictures of the real things. The payoff? That comes in the form of citizen science....(read more)
We’re so used to thinking about other planets… around other stars… in other galaxies… that it’s difficult to believe the existence of extrasolar planets (”exoplanets”) was unconfirmed until 1992. The first published “discovery” was actually made four years earlier by astronomers Bruce Campbell, G.A. Walker, and S. Yang of a planet orbiting the binary system [...]
CollectSpace: 'The Rock' speaks out for NASA (and 'Planet 51')
Fedline: Nuclear agency tries to find dates for its geeks
Tech Review: Watch a molecular machine in action
'Nova' on PBS: 'What Are Dreams?' ..(read more)
I was reminded of the amazing paw print on Mercury picture, taken by Messenger, while Michael, Doug and I were recording the latest Slacker Astronomy podcast. I added my own text in the tradition of Lolcats. What can I say; I’m easily amused.
Photo credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institute of Washington
October 2009 is pretty interesting up in northern hemisphere, because all seven planets can be seen during one night. This is not very usual. Read more about planets in October 2009 and find all the planets during one night.
An illustration of LCROSS heading for lunar impact. Credit: NASA
The NASA LCROSS spacecraft, and part of the upper stage of its rocket, are due to deliberately crash into a crater (known as Cabeus) close to the Moon’s south pole on Friday (12:31pm UK time). Scientists are hoping that the huge plumes the impacts create will [...]