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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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21 July 2010
Comet Whacked Neptune 230 Years Ago
Researchers studying Neptune's atmosphere found evidence that a comet may have hit the planet about two centuries ago. Was this a "cold-case" file re-opened, or did they discover a way to travel back in time to witness a long-ago event? To make the discovery, a team from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research [...]
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16 July 2010
Boatload of Herschel Science Papers Released
Love to read science papers? Here's a batch that will keep you busy for a while. 152 papers were released this morning highlighting the Herschel telescope's first science results. A few papers describe the observatory and its instruments, and the rest are dedicated to observations of many astronomical targets from bodies in the Solar System [...]
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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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18 June 2010
Occulation Reveals Distant Kuiper Belt Object is Surprisingly Icy Bright
How do you study an extremely small planetary body in the dim outer reaches of our solar system? Get all your friends from around the world to wait for a very elusive – if not short-lived – special event. And in doing so, you may find something completely unexpected. Enter James Elliot from MIT. Elliot [...]
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17 June 2010
Podcast: The Future of Astronomy
We spent 5 episodes telling the story of astronomy so far, how we got from the work of the Babylonians to the modern discoveries made in the last decade. But now we want to look forward, studying the current space missions and experiments to uncover the mysteries that astronomers hope to solve. Click here to [...]
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17 June 2010
Zoom into a New VISTA of the Sculptor Galaxy
The new VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile (the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy) has captured a great new image of the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253), and this video allows you to zoom in for a closer look. The sequence starts with a wide view of the southern sky far [...]
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16 June 2010
Fully Functional Pan-STARRS is now Panning for Stars, Asteroids and Comets
There's a new eye on the skies on the lookout for 'killer' asteroids and comets. The first Pan-STARRS (Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System) telescope, PS1, is fully operational, ready to map large portions of the sky nightly, making it an efficient sleuth for not just potential incoming space rocks, but also supernovae [...]
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15 June 2010
Subaru Telescope Takes Montage of Hayabusa's Return to Earth
The world watched and waited for the Hayabusa spacecraft to make its return to Earth on June 13, 2010 and the people of Japan — who built and launched the little spacecraft that could (and did!) — were especially hopeful in watching and waiting. Japan's Subaru Telescope (although located on Mauna Kea in Hawaii) [...]
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08 June 2010
Exoplanet Hunting Robotic Telescope Sees First Light
Great shot of the Tarantula nebula! A new robotic telescope dedicated primarily to hunting for extra solar planets has opened its eyes. Although its first light image is of a nebula, the TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile will focus on detecting and characterizing planets located [...]
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07 June 2010
Dramatic Moonset — Amazing Sight on Cerro Paranal
Need a new desktop image? Usually the Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal in Chile provides us with stunning views of the cosmos. This image, however, is a gorgeous view of the observatory itself. As the Moon was setting after a long night of observing, ESO staff member Gordon Gillet welcomed the new [...]
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02 June 2010
Scientist Explains New LOFAR Image of Quasar 3C196
We received several questions about our article on the new high-resolution LOFAR (LOw Frequency Array) image of quasar 3C196, concerning what was actually visible in this new image. We contacted LOFAR scientist Olaf Wucknitz from the Argelander-Institute for Astronomy at Bonn University in Germany, and he has provided an extensive explanation. (...)Read the rest of [...]
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28 May 2010
SOFIA Sees First Light
Flying SOFIA has opened her eyes! The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint program by NASA and the German Aerospace Center made its first observations on May 26. The new observatory uses a modified 747 airplane to carry a German-built 2.5 meter (100 inch) reflecting telescope. "With this flight, SOFIA begins [...]
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25 May 2010
The Story Behind SOFIA, NASA's Flying Observatory
From the Cornell University Chronicle, written by Lauren Gold: The SOFIA project has been in the making for more than 13 years — but the airplane has an even longer history. Originally owned by Pan Am, the 747SP (Special Performance) was named the Clipper Lindbergh and christened by Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1977 on the 50th [...]
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13 May 2010
WISE Pictures the Tadpole Nebula with a String of Pearls
The Tadpole nebula is looking very stylish in this new infrared image from the WISE spacecraft, NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. An asteroid appears like a string of pearls — seen as a line of yellow-green dots in the boxes near center — in this stitched together mosaic. The Tadpole is a star-forming [...]
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