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29 July 2010
Antarctic Observatory Finds Weird Pattern of Cosmic Rays
From a University of Wisconsin press release: Though still under construction, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole is already delivering scientific results — including an early finding about a phenomenon the telescope was not even designed to study. IceCube captures signals of notoriously elusive but scientifically fascinating subatomic particles called neutrinos. The telescope [...]
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28 July 2010
Stunning New Image of Wolf-Rayet Star and the Carina Nebula
Massive stars live fast and die young. But they are also beautiful. This amazingly spectacular new image from ESO shows the brilliant and unusual star Wolf-Rayet 22 nestled within billowing, colorful folds of the Carina Nebula. WR 22 is one of many exceptionally hot and brilliant stars contained by the beautiful Carina Nebula (also known [...]
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22 July 2010
Most Massive Star Discovered: Over 300 Suns at Birth!
Often, writing about astronomy tends to mirror the job of those writing for the Guiness Book of World Records – just when you think a record is practically unbeatable, somebody else appears to show up the previous record-holder. This is surely the case with the stellar heavyweight (er, "heavymass") R 136a1, which has been shown [...]
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20 July 2010
WISE Mission Completes All-sky Infrared Survey
If you take a lot of digital pictures, you're probably familiar with the frustration of keeping track of dozens of files, and always running out of hard drive space to store them. Well, the scientists and engineers on NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission have no pity for you. Their spacecraft just finished photographing [...]
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17 July 2010
Astronomy Without A Telescope – Brown Dwarfs Are Magnetic Too.
I feel a certain empathy for brown dwarfs. The first confirmed finding of one was only fifteen years ago and they remain frequently overlooked in most significant astronomical surveys. I mean OK, they can only (stifles laughter) burn deuterium but that's something, isn't it?(...)Read the rest of Astronomy Without A Telescope – Brown Dwarfs Are [...]
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16 July 2010
Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: July 16-19, 2010
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a rock the night weekend? Then come along as you won't need a telescope to watch the movement of the planets and the Perseid meteor shower heating up your evenings! If you'd still like a challenge, then why not chase bright asteroid Ceres with binoculars – or look [...]
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14 July 2010
Big or Small, All Stars Form the Same Way
How do massive stars form? This has been one of the more hotly debated questions in astronomy. Do big stars form by accretion like low-mass stars or do they form through the merging of low mass protostars? Since massive stars tend to be quite far away and usually are surrounded by a shroud of dust, [...]
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12 July 2010
Dying Star or Beautiful Bird?
What a gorgeous new Hubble image! At first glance this object looks like a beautiful, giant, translucent bird. But it is actually star shedding its outer atmosphere. The cloud around this bright star is called IRAS 19475+3119. It lies in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan) about 15, 000 light-years from Earth in the plane [...]
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11 July 2010
Bright Outburst of QZ Virginis In Progress…
According to AAVSO Special Notice #212: "Hiroshi Matsuyama (MTH), Kanimbla, Queensland, Australia, reports and Rod Stubbings (SRX), Tetoora Road, Victoria, Australia, confirms that the SU UMa-type dwarf nova QZ Vir (formerly called T Leo) is in outburst, and possibly in superoutburst." (...)Read the rest of Bright Outburst of QZ Virginis In Progress… (85 words) © [...]
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10 July 2010
Astronomy Without A Telescope – Coloring In The Oort Cloud
It's possible that if we do eventually observe the hypothetical objects that make up the hypothetical Oort cloud, they will all be a deep red color. This red coloring will probably be a mix of ices, richly laced with organic compounds – and may represent remnants of the primordial material from which the solar system [...]
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09 July 2010
Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: July 9-11, 2010
Greetings, Fellow SkyWatchers! Is it hot enough for you where you live? Not if you're in the southern hemisphere… But this weekend the southern hemisphere is the place to be if you're interested in catching a total solar eclipse! If you can't travel that close, then let's travel far, far away as we take a [...]
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08 July 2010
Podcast: Astronomy With the Unaided Eye
We talk a lot about telescopes here on Astronomy Cast, but you really don't need any special equipment to appreciate what the night sky has to offer. Just head outside with some sky charts, maybe a planisphere, some friends and hot chocolate, and you're good to go. Let's talk about what kinds of things you [...]
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03 July 2010
Astronomy Without A Telescope – Animal Astronomy
In the 1950s, the Sauer research team locked some birds in Olbers planetarium and started messing with them. First they projected a northern hemisphere autumn sky and the birds flew 'south' – away from Polaris and keeping Betelgeuse to the left ('east'). Then they projected a spring night sky and the birds flew 'north' towards [...]
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03 July 2010
Weekend SkyWatcher's Forecast: July 2-4, 2010
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Hopefully the rains have passed in your area and you're ready for some dark skies and a double-dip… Double stars that is! This weekend we'll take a look at some of the most colorful and interesting binary stars of the summer. Need more? Then hang tight as we take a look at [...]
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30 June 2010
Mysterious Giant Gas Ring Explained
From a Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope press release: An international team unveiled the origin of the giant gas ring in the Leo group of galaxies. With the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, the scientists were able to detect an optical signature of the ring corresponding to star forming regions. This observation rules out the primordial nature of the gas, which [...]
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