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NASA's Dawn spacecraft already had an impressive resume when it reachedin early March. Launched in 2007, Dawn is strolling through space, looking deep into the early history of our solar system by studying the asteroid Vesta along with Ceres, its larger sibling. Both are located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Ju... | 0.841883 | 3.503063 |
An international team composed of researchers from Finland, France, the United States and the Czech Republic originally set out to construct a state-of-the-art model of the NEO population that is needed for planning future asteroid surveys and spacecraft missions. The model describes the NEOs' orbit distribution and es... | 0.862345 | 3.986809 |
There really won't be a big bang!
Throughout the year, during most of our public and private programs, we manage to view M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, at the Oregon Observatory. The staff member manning the telescope viewing our neighboring galaxy explains something like: “the M31 galaxy or Andromeda galaxy is our closest... | 0.842632 | 3.312425 |
Where do you think you’d be more likely to survive if stranded – the moon or Mars?
Before you recall the violent dust storm on Mars that nearly killed Mark Watney in the film The Martian and say “the moon,” let us tell you a story about new research produced by the Planetary Science Lab (PSL) at LSU revealing complex g... | 0.820299 | 3.740829 |
IRF-U Space Plasma Physics
| INSTITUTET FÖR RYMDFYSIK
| Swedish Institute of Space Physics
|| (59o50.272'N, 17o38.786'E)
the research programme
Space Plasma Physics
We investigate what
goes on in space using instruments we build
ourselves and fly on spacecraft, ground based instruments, computer
simulations and plasma ... | 0.86074 | 3.155186 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2009 March 22
Explanation: The Sun destroyed this comet. Arcing toward a fiery fate, this Sungrazer comet was recorded by the SOHO spacecraft's Larg... | 0.859705 | 3.207928 |
WISE to Start Today
NASA's WISE Set to Blast Off and Map the Skies
"The last time we mapped the whole sky at these particular infrared wavelengths was 26 years ago," said Edward (Ned) Wright of UCLA, who is the principal investigator of the mission. "Infrared technology has come a long way since then. The old all-sky i... | 0.863247 | 3.495363 |
The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is the world’s largest radio telescope project, which will collect data over one million square kilometres from radio astronomy telescopes on the African and Australian continents. In the long run the two-phased SKA could possibly help scientists answer questions in astrophysics, cosmol... | 0.843627 | 3.577189 |
“Ocean Worlds” discoveries build case for new missions
WASHINGTON — Discoveries involving two “ocean world” moons in the outer solar system announced April 13 are likely to bolster the case for planned and proposed spacecraft missions to those worlds.
At a press conference, NASA announced that its Cassini spacecraft, o... | 0.84142 | 3.283914 |
There are about two dozen so-called hypervelocity stars known to be escaping our Milky Way galaxy, but PB 3877 is the first wide binary star found to travel at such a high speed. The results of a new study challenge the commonly accepted scenario that hypervelocity stars are accelerated by the supermassive black hole a... | 0.896228 | 3.63686 |
Robert Michael / AFP - Getty Images
A nearly full moon rises behind the cross of the Frauenkirche in the German city of Dresden in May 4.
Saturday night's "supermoon" is the biggest and brightest full moon of the year, due to the fact that the moon is near the closest point in its orbital path around Earth. But just ho... | 0.880247 | 3.73848 |
1.2.6 Synchronous rotation
Because most moons in the Solar System are in close orbit around much larger planetary bodies, over time the speed of a moon’s rotation is decreased as the tidal, or gravitational, pull between the two bodies drags on the moon’s spin. Eventually, this slows down a moon’s rotation so much that... | 0.884556 | 3.409088 |
In 1828 the Royal Astronomical Society awarded its gold medal to Caroline Herschel, the first woman to receive the prize. It wouldn't be awarded to another woman until 1996.
Herschel was also the first woman to be paid for her contribution to science for the discovery of six new comets.
On what would be her 266th birth... | 0.907175 | 3.100576 |
Scientists using images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, have estimated that the planet is bombarded by more than 200 small asteroids or bits of comets per year forming craters at least 12.8 feet (3.9 meters) across.
Researchers have identified 248 new impact sites on parts of the Martian surface in the... | 0.884583 | 3.91405 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2013 August 15
Explanation: In an astronomical version of the search for the source of the Nile, astronomers now have strong evidence for the origin... | 0.890953 | 3.188222 |
Experimental study of gravitation
The essence of Newton’s theory of gravitation is that the force between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses and the inverse square of their separation and that the force depends on nothing else. With a small modification, the same is true in general relativity. Ne... | 0.809748 | 3.876769 |
Space transport to benefit from propulsion systems based on fusion plasma
A Soyuz rocket sitting on the launchpad holds approximately 347,000 pounds of propellant in each of its four boosters. While this is great for thrusting the craft into orbit, it comes at a heavy price – literally. But what if we could reduce the ... | 0.843486 | 3.317045 |
Using one of the world's largest telescopes, a Lawrence Livermore team and international collaborators have tracked the orbit of a planet at least four times the size of Jupiter.
The scientists were able to identify the orbit of the exoplanet, Beta Pictoris b, which sits 63 light years from our solar system, by using t... | 0.902576 | 3.952002 |
Earth's Invisible Magnetic Tail
The first global views of our planet's magnetosphere,
captured by NASA's IMAGE spacecraft, reveal a curious plasma
tail that stretches toward the Sun.
January 25, 2001 -- The first large-scale pictures of the hidden machinations of the Earth's magnetic force-field are now available, incl... | 0.810191 | 3.610251 |
Dark matter is kind of old-hat in these exciting days of dark energy. Nevertheless, we don't know very much about it. We know that it exists, we have a very good idea of where it is, and we even know how much of it is around—but we don't know what it is or how it interacts with other matter aside from via gravity. Thes... | 0.852721 | 4.146015 |
Ever since Neptune was discovered in 1846, astronomers have wondered about the possibility of the existence of another, far more distant planet in our solar system. Discrepancies in the orbits of the outer planets have even led some scientists to theorize about the existence of a "Planet X," a phantom planet with mass ... | 0.816548 | 3.425419 |
NASA is counting down to Friday's launch of Juno, just the second probe sent specifically to study Jupiter, on a mission that should see the spacecraft arrive at the solar system's largest planet in August 2016.
Among Juno's mission objectives will be the construction of a 3-D map of Jupiter's full environment, accordi... | 0.852561 | 3.173224 |
If you're trying to get actual images of exoplanets, it helps to look at M-dwarfs, particularly young ones.
These stars, from a class that makes up perhaps 75 percent of all the stars in the galaxy, are low in mass and much dimmer than their heavier cousins, meaning the contrast between the star's light and that of orb... | 0.862046 | 4.047968 |
In class, we learned Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion, which describe how planets orbit around a star. The three laws are as follows:
- A planet orbits around its sun in an ellipses.
- A radius vector joining any planet to its sun sweeps out equal areas in equal lengths of time.
- The revolution of a planet squa... | 0.854251 | 3.712615 |
It’s no longer a question of if there is water on the Moon; now it is how much. Scientists using the Mini-SAR instrument on India’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft have detected water ice deposits near the moon’s north pole. Mini-SAR, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. Th... | 0.811 | 3.626626 |
This is an image of Pluto.
Click on image for full size
Image from: NASA
An Overview of Pluto's Atmosphere
It may seem hard to believe that Pluto could have an atmosphere because it is so cold at 39 AU, where Pluto resides, but it does. Because there are times when Pluto is closer to the sun than is Neptune (making it ... | 0.812012 | 3.355904 |
Early Earth was not very hospitable when it came to jump starting life. In fact, new research shows that life on Earth may have come from out of this world.
Lawrence Livermore scientist Nir Goldman and University of Ontario Institute of Technology colleague Isaac Tamblyn (a former LLNL postdoc) found that icy comets th... | 0.882248 | 3.996177 |
Two new and powerful research tools are helping astronomers gain key insights needed to transform our understanding of important processes across the breadth of astrophysics. The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and the newly-expanded Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) offer scientists vastly imp... | 0.874793 | 3.969369 |
Study Reveals Our Milky Way Galaxy Contains A Massive Amount of Black Holes
Black holes are surprisingly common.
A new study has revealed that there are actually tens of millions of black holes in our own galaxy alone.
Few cosmic phenomena remain as frightening and mysterious as black holes – regions of space in which ... | 0.885631 | 3.362446 |
Solar astronomy is the study of our sun, which can also be called stellar astronomy because our sun is technically a star. The main branch of solar astronomy is solar physics, which is a branch of astrophysics that specifically studies the sun. The sun is our closest star, therefore is an ideal star to study and especi... | 0.821664 | 3.088859 |
It’s taken eight years to build, boasts 570 megapixels and it’s hoped that it’ll help answer one of the greatest mysteries in science – why the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
The Dark Energy Camera has come online on a mountaintop in Chile and produced its first incredible images.
The purpose of the camera,... | 0.859114 | 3.908951 |
Sept. 6 (UPI) -- A new analysis of Jupiter's auroras, the most powerful in the solar system, has revealed a fresh mystery.
"At Jupiter, the brightest auroras are caused by some kind of turbulent acceleration process that we do not understand very well," Barry Mauk, a researcher in the Applied Physics Laboratory at John... | 0.869417 | 3.739848 |
The final orbit of Venus by the Magellan spacecraft in October 1994 brought to a close an exciting period of Venus reconnaissance and exploration. The scientific studies resulting from data collected by the Magellan, Galileo, and Pioneer missions are unprecedented in their detail for any planet except Earth. Venus II r... | 0.825481 | 3.026274 |
I’ve been a fan of Richard Feynman in that he is one of the few mainstream scientists that actually insisted that theories be consistent with the data, but also because he seemed so capable of thinking a problem through. Recently, I’ve been giving thought to his method of diagramming nuclear reactions, and one aspect o... | 0.830061 | 3.467488 |
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Observing Equipment and Aids
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There's more to observing than just telescopes. Here are a few of the extra pieces of equipment a... | 0.82956 | 3.523685 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2000 March 9
Explanation: Late last month another erupting filament lifted off the active solar surface and blasted this enormous bubble of magnetic... | 0.831608 | 3.03794 |
Scientists at the University of Geneva who are looking for planets outside our solar system have found one with a unique feature: a huge tail made of gas.
The exoplanet GJ 436b, as the tailed planet is called, orbits its central star very closely and therefore loses part of its atmosphere because of the star’s intense ... | 0.913868 | 3.164063 |
Using data from the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, scientists have reported progress in understanding the longstanding mystery of how and where cosmic rays originate, in a development that might help us find ways to shield astronauts and electronics from cosmic radiation.
What is a cosmic ray?
The term... | 0.804508 | 4.110293 |
Over the years we’ve had some pretty amazing comets swing by our planet. I remember the ones I’ve seen myself: Hyakutake, Hale-Bopp, Holmes, Pan-STARRS, McNaught… they were all beautiful and amazing sights.
Now we have C/2012 S1 (ISON) passing our way, and it’s certainly grabbing attention. It’s brightened substantiall... | 0.843192 | 3.634348 |
ann1008 — Announcement
Hubble Gives Clues about Saturn’s “Irregular Heartbeat”
4 August 2010
A European-led team has used the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to make a startling discovery about Saturn, the Solar System’s second largest planet . The astronomers discovered that Saturn’s aurora, an ethereal ultraviolet gl... | 0.811018 | 3.223286 |
Supernova Remnant Turns 400
Four hundred years ago, sky watchers, including the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler, were startled by the sudden appearance of a "new star" in the western sky, rivaling the brilliance of the nearby planets. Now, astronomers using NASA's three Great Observatories are unraveling the mysterie... | 0.889214 | 3.23777 |
June 3, 2005
Mineral on Mars Suggests Dry Local History
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- By using new, high spatial resolution infrared data from NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft, Victoria Hamilton from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and Philip Christensen from Arizona State University have concluded that a region on the surface o... | 0.835802 | 3.855211 |
WASHINGTON — NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft has returned data that indicate ice may make up as much as 22 percent of the surface material in a crater located on the moon’s south pole.
The team of NASA and university scientists using laser light from LRO’s laser altimeter examined the floor of Shac... | 0.82405 | 3.890331 |
Rocket Science Meets X-Ray Science
Credit: Marilyn Chung/Berkeley Lab
It takes rocket science to launch and fly spacecraft to faraway planets and moons, but a deep understanding of how materials perform under extreme conditions is also needed to enter and land on planets with atmospheres. X-ray science is playing a key... | 0.815565 | 3.660897 |
Photographing the invisible using infrared light
In 1800, the German astronomer William Herschel was the first to discover that light is not always visible to the naked eye. During an optical experiment, Herschel passed sunlight through a prism to separate the white light into its coloured components. Using a thermomet... | 0.865707 | 3.790167 |
The most precise measurement yet of the Hubble parameter illuminates dark energy — the elusive entity that’s accelerating the universe’s expansion.
Astronomers have used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to precisely map the structure of the young universe. The most recent analysis, released on April 7th, p... | 0.849308 | 4.16865 |
Researchers have uncovered what they say is a new class of ultra-low-density ice, which crystallises amid extreme negative pressure on water molecules.
While many of us are only familiar with the kind of frozen water that keeps our drinks nice and chilled, regular ice on Earth is just one of around 20 known phases of i... | 0.830061 | 3.812711 |
NASA captures 3D video of comet plunging into sun
NASA's twin sun-watching STEREO spacecrafts have tracked a comet as it looped around the sun before impact.
A comet plunging into the sun has been captured in 3-D as it hurtled along its kamikaze path for the first time, solar physicists announced Monday.
Four post-doct... | 0.87352 | 3.621017 |
Laura Dean Bennett
If the spectacular show that the solar eclipse just put on has whetted your appetite for another astronomical extravaganza, you are in luck.
It’s nearly time for the Harvest Moon – the closest, brightest and most outrageously beautiful full moon of the year.
Usually the Harvest Moon falls in Septembe... | 0.822309 | 3.325204 |
eso0025 — Photo Release
ESO Observations of New Moon of Jupiter
4 August 2000
Two astronomers, both specialists in minor bodies in the solar system, have performed observations with ESO telescopes that provide important information about a small moon, recently discovered in orbit around the solar system's largest plane... | 0.869623 | 3.616379 |
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