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The Transit of Venus is considered one of the rarest events in the celestial calendar, so rare that some people will never see one in their lifetime. The event occurs when Venus’s orbit takes it across the view of the sun and eclipses a small portion of it. It basically will appear as a black dot transiting across the fiery sun. The last time this special event will happen in our lifetimes is on June 5th and 6th 2012.
One of the Rarest Events in Space is Occurring this June 5th and 6th: Everything you need to know about the Transit of Venus, 6/2/12
Launched in 2009, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer or WISE methodically snapped an infrared picture about once every 11 seconds for ten months — totaling around 2.7 million images — in an attempt to compile an atlas of the entire sky. This past Wednesday, NASA released the final version of their all-sky atlas and catalog of objects, which should keep scientists and astronomers busy for quite some time.
NASA Releases Atlas of the Entire Sky, 3/17/12
An entirely new kind of planet dominated by water and not by rock, gas or other common materials has been identified by US scientists.
The planet is "a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere", researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said in a statement after scrutinising the planet with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.
'Waterworld' super planet confirmed, 2/22/12
A small comet survived what astronomers figured would be a sure death when it danced uncomfortably close to the broiling sun.
Comet Lovejoy, which was only discovered a couple of weeks ago, was supposed to melt Thursday night when it came close to where temperatures hit several million degrees. Astronomers had tracked 2,000 other sun-grazing comets make the same suicidal trip. None had ever survived.
But astronomers watching live with NASA telescopes first saw the sun's corona wiggle as Lovejoy went close to the sun. They were then shocked when a bright spot emerged on the sun's other side. Lovejoy lived.
Comet Lovejoy defies death, brushes up to Sun and lives, 12/16/11
A newly discovered planet is eerily similar to Earth and is sitting outside our solar system in what seems to be the ideal place for life, except for one hitch. It's a bit too big.
The planet is smack in the middle of what astronomers call the Goldilocks zone, that hard to find place that's not too hot, not too cold, where water, which is essential for life, doesn't freeze or boil. And it has a shopping mall-like surface temperature of near 72 degrees, scientists say.
Planet in sweet spot of Goldilocks zone for life, 12/6/11
These days, every exoplanet discovery is still rich with excitement, as astronomers scrutinize each distant world and consider its possible characteristics. But this could get tedious pretty soon, as the number of confirmed exoplanets climbs into the thousands. When that happens, astronomers and especially astrobiologists will have to start sifting planets according to their interestingness. A new paper to be published next month describes a new two-step ranking system to make this process easier. We spoke to astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch to get some details.
Unlike other astrobiology criteria, this new system doesn’t assume that habitability only applies to a rocky place with liquid water. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, first author on the new paper and an astrobiologist at Washington State University, said the team wanted to be as open-minded as possible.
How to Rate the Habitability of Other Planets, 11/23/11
Before the telescope was invented in 1608, our picture of the universe consisted of six planets, our moon, the sun and any stars we could see in the Milky Way galaxy. But as our light-gathering capabilities have grown, so too have the boundaries of the visible universe. Our interactive map shows how the known universe has grown from 1950 to 2011.
In the late 1700s, William Herschel, an English astronomer using a telescope with an 18.7-inch aperture, made the first systematic surveys of the skies, revealing more than 2,000 distant galaxies, nebulae and other objects invisible to the naked eye. Since then, increasingly powerful optical and radio telescopes have greatly expanded our store of knowledge.
In 1948, astronomers erected the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory in California, and now, large-scale projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and NASA’s Kepler mission use sensitive digital imaging and computational power to collect and analyze hundreds of terabytes of data on millions of galaxies billions of light-years from Earth. With each additional bit of data, the universe itself grows larger.
Visible Universe, Then and Now, 11/2/11
Star on verge of going hypernova could wipe out Earth life.
It's name is Eta Carinae. It's a star—or to be absolutely accurate—a binary star. And it's getting ready to destroy anything within 50,000 light years of it...like Earth.
Although few have ever heard of Eta Carinae, if things go wrong—horribly wrong—it could be the final, gasping words spilling from the gnarled lips of the last dying humans on Earth.
Once and for all, Doomsday really will have arrived.
Although it might sound like some Grade-B Hollywood End-of-the-World thriller, the scenario is very real. All too real. And it's too close for comfort in more ways than one.
Scientists: Deadly star could kill humanity next year, 10/18/11
It's a bad day when 150 years of what everyone accepted as known must be tossed into the dust bin.
That day may have arrived for cosmologists and their construct of the nature of the universe. At least Edmund Schluessel of Cardiff University thinks so, or maybe not.
Physics, even astrophysics, is grounded on the observation and calculation of thousands of scientists over the centuries. Two who are bedrocks of the foundation of the science are Sir Isaac Newton and Alfred Einstein. Their work, along with other hallowed saints of science like Hubble, Huygens and more, helped lay the groundwork for all modern physics including cosmology.
Scientists: Our basic cosmological perception of universe may be wrong, 10/3/11
In yesterday’s post, I discussed the distinct possibility that both Deimos and Phobos are in fact space habitats formed originally by humanity before the triggering of the Pleistocene Nonconformity around 15,000 years ago. As before readers can google this site – see side bar – to read my many posts on this topic.
Today we will develop this hypothesis to certain logical conclusions. The key is the apparent density problem which actually screams that the objects are both hollow.
Phobos & Deimos as Habitats, 9/26/11
Get out your binoculars and telescopes. This weekend, a supernova that is closer to Earth than any found in at least the last 25 years will be visible from your back yard.
The violently exploding white dwarf star is brightening in the Pinwheel Galaxy, approximately 21 million light-years away.
See a supernova from your back yard this weekend, 9/2/11
An international team of astronomers, led by Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology professor Matthew Bailes, has discovered a planet made of diamond crystals, in our own Milky Way galaxy.
The planet is relatively small at around 60,000 km in diameter (still, it’s five times the size of Earth). But despite its diminutive stature, this crystal space rock has more mass than the solar system’s gas giant Jupiter.
Astronomers Find Planet Made of Diamond, 8/26/11
The argument for both water and supported plant life of some form is pretty compelling. Most such evidence is centered on the great rift near the Equator and is about were such discoveries might be made.
One ends up generally concurring that life in some form is occupying occasional refugia on Mars and that begs the question of why we are not already paying close attention to the obvious targets like the obvious lake unless we are been led astray somehow.
Life Prospects on Mars, 8/25/11
Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever found in the universe. It’s 12 billion light years away, and holds at least 140 trillion times the amount of water in all the Earth’s oceans combined.
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It manifests itself as a colossal mass of water vapor, hidden in the distant APM 08279+5255 quasar. Quasars are bright and violent galactic nuclei fueled by a supermassive black hole at their center.
This quasar holds a black hole that’s 20 billion times more massive than the sun, and after gobbling down dust and gas it belches out as much energy as a thousand trillion suns. The water vapor is spread around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light years.
Black Hole Holds Universe’s Biggest Water Supply, 7/25/11
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite – temporarily designated P4 -- was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.
The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).
"I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km)," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led this observing program with Hubble.
NASA's Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto, 7/20/11
For the last time ever, the space shuttle parted ways from the International Space Station this morning, preparing to come back to Earth for good. Atlantis slipped away at 2:28 a.m. EDT Tuesday, flying a half-loop over the station so the crews could take pictures of their respective spacecraft. The ISS rotated 90 degrees so the shuttle astronauts could snap a picture of its long axis, a view the shuttle can't normally see. The pictures will document the product of the space shuttle fleet's three decades of service, NASA said.
Shuttle Heads Home for the Last Time, Bidding Farewell to International Space Station, 7/19/11
Looking for a source of renewable electricity? Researchers at the University of Toronto have found some serious current emanating from a huge cosmic jet 2 billion light years from Earth. At 1018 amps, the current is the strongest current ever seen, equalling something like a trillion bolts of lightning.
Strongest Electrical Current in the Universe Spotted, 2 Billion Light Years From Here, 6/22/11
We have all heard of little green men from Mars. But now an American 'armchair astronaut' claims to have discovered a mysterious structure on the surface of the red planet - by looking on Google earth. David Martines, whose YouTube video of the 'station' has racked up over 200,000 hits so far, claims to have randomly uncovered the picture while scanning the surface of the planet one day.
Armchair astronaut discovers Mars 'space station' using Google earth, 6/6/11
Estação em Marte?, 6/6/11
An extraordinary, geometric, clearly artificial, fractured 3-D surface ... lying just beneath the veneer of "battered, ancient asteroid stuff" that Phobos presents from most other viewing angles -- all now stunningly revealed (below) ... in this high-resolution Mars Express Phobos "face-on" image!
Richard C. Hoagland: Phobos, the inner Moon of Mars, is an ancient, artificially hollow spaceship
This stunning 360 degree panorama of the night sky was stitched together from 37,000 images by a first-time astrophotographer.
Nick Risinger, a 28-year-old native of Seattle, trekked more than 60,000 miles around the western United States and South Africa to create the largest-ever true-color image of the stellar sphere. The final result is an interactive, zoomable sky map showing the full Milky Way and the stars, planets, galaxies and nebulae around it
Stunning Interactive Sky Image, 4/27/11
NASA’s Swift satellite, Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to study one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts ever observed. More than a week later, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade from its location.
Astronomers say they have never seen such a bright, variable, high-energy, long-lasting burst before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, and flaring emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours.
NASA Telescopes Join Forces To Observe Unprecedented Explosion, 4/11/11
Backed by stunning illustrations, David Christian narrates a complete history of the universe, from the Big Bang to the Internet, in a riveting 18 minutes. This is "Big History": an enlightening, wide-angle look at complexity, life and humanity, set against our slim share of the cosmic timeline.
Big History - Big Bang to the Internet in 18 minutes, 4/11
Astrophysicist Dr. Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky calculated the orbital motion of Martian satellite Phobos and came to the jaw-dropping conclusion that the moon is artificial, hollow, and basically a titanic spaceship. Mars' two moons, Phobos and Deimos, translate into "fear" and "horror." As Mars is named after the god of war, the names seem appropriate. Both satellites were discovered in 1877 by U.S. astronomer Asaph Hall who never guessed they were artificial.
Astrophysicist: Giant spaceships are orbiting Mars, 4/6/11
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has revised its earlier estimates of Earthlike worlds in our galaxy. Now the space agency believes up to 2 billion such planets exist
Now 2 billion alien earths estimated to exist in our galaxy, 3/23/11
NASA has reported that its MESSENGER spacecraft is now in orbit around the planet Mercury – the first ever mission to achieve this feat. More than 40 years on from the first moon landing in the age of the Mars rovers and space tourism, it's easy to overlook just what a remarkable a feat this is. These amazing facts might just jolt our sense of wonder – before reaching orbit on Thursday at approximately 9 pm EDT, MESSENGER traveled for six and a half years and covered 4.9-billion-miles in which it went through three flybys of Mercury, one of Earth and two of Venus. After firing its main thruster for 15 minutes the spacecraft slowed by 1,929 mph (leaving around 10 percent of fuel in the tank for orbit correction maneuvers) and it is now in a 12 hour elliptical orbit around the innermost planet some 96.35 million miles from Earth.
MESSENGER becomes first spacecraft to orbit Mercury, 3/18/11
Scientists believe they may have found a new planet in the far reaches of the solar system, up to four times the mass of Jupiter.
Its orbit would be thousands of times further from the Sun than the Earth's - which could explain why it has so far remained undiscovered.
Data which could prove the existence of Tyche, a gas giant in the outer Oort Cloud, is set to be released later this year - although some believe proof has already been garnered by Nasa with its pace telescope, Wise, and is waiting to be pored over.
Largest planet in the solar system could be about to be discovered - and it's up to four times the size of Jupiter, 2/14/11
How big is the universe anyhow? We know the universe is roughly 4 billion years old and we know how far light travels in a year, so ostensibly it would seem the visible universe is contained to a radius of 14 billion light years. But we know that photons in the cosmic microwave background have traveled some 45 billion light years to reach earth (because the universe is also expanding the most distant visible objects are actually further than 14 billion light years), giving the universe an apparent diameter of at least 90 billion light years.
So how big is it really? A new mathematical analysis says its at least 250 times larger than the visible universe. Which is really, really big
But it’s not actually the biggest proposed size of the universe. When cosmologists crunch their data, they use different models to give values to the universe’s curvature and therefore it’s size. Since we don’t know the shape of the universe, or whether it’s flat or open or closed or infinite, so we use different benchmarks to make our best guesses. This leads to a huge range of values assigned to the size of the universe, each as un-provable as the last.
New Model Says the Cosmos Is At Least 250 Times Larger Than the Visible Universe, 2/1/11
While the astronomical community anxiously awaits the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope keeps reminding us just how remarkable of an instrument it really is. Astronomers studying ultra-deep imagery from Hubble have located what could be the most distant galaxy ever glimpsed some 13.2 billion light years away—so far away that the galaxy appears as it did when the universe was just 480 million years old.
In ancient Greece, Helios, the god of the sun, was said to rise from the ocean in the east each morning and ride in his chariot across the sky each day to descend at night in the west.
The discovery is notable not just because of its superlative nature, but because the universe was undergoing massive changes over a relatively short duration during this period. The infrared data collected by Hubble’s Wide Field Planetary Camera 3 (WFC3) showed significant changes taking place in the periods spanning from about 480 million years after the Big Bang to about 650 million years after the Big Bang.
Hubble Peers 13.2 Billion Years Back in Time to Capture the Most Distant Galaxy Ever Seen, 1/26/11
Earth could be getting a second sun, at least temporarily.
Dr. Brad Carter, Senior Lecturer of Physics at the University of Southern Queensland, outlined the scenario to news.com.au. Betelgeuse, one of the night sky's brightest stars, is losing mass, indicating it is collapsing. It could run out of fuel and go super-nova at any time.
When that happens, for at least a few weeks, we'd see a second sun, Carter says. There may also be no night during that timeframe
Two Suns? Twin Stars Could Be Visible From Earth By 2012, 1/20/11
One of the strangest space objects ever seen is being scrutinized by the penetrating vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. A mysterious, glowing green blob of gas is floating in space near a spiral galaxy. Hubble uncovered delicate filaments of gas and a pocket of young star clusters in the giant object, which is the size of our Milky Way galaxy.
The Hubble revelations are the latest finds in an ongoing probe of Hanny's Voorwerp (Hanny's Object in Dutch), named for Hanny van Arkel, the Dutch teacher who discovered the ghostly structure in 2007 while participating in the online Galaxy Zoo project. Galaxy Zoo enlists the public to help classify more than a million galaxies catalogued in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The project has expanded to include the Hubble Zoo, in which the public is asked to assess tens of thousands of galaxies in deep imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble Zooms in on a Space Oddity, 1/11/11
Between 1876 and 2002, the people of Lead, South Dakota, extracted $3.5 billion worth of gold from the Homestake mine. It was the town’s main business, and when falling prices and diminishing returns finally shut it down, no one was sure what to do with the remaining 8,000-foot hole in the ground. Then, in 2007, the National Science Foundation decided that an 8,000-foot hole would be the perfect place to put its proposed Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, or DUSEL, a massive research complex that will include the world’s deepest underground lab.
Between 1876 and 2002, the people of Lead, South Dakota, extracted $3.5 billion worth of gold from the Homestake mine. It was the town’s main business, and when falling prices and diminishing returns finally shut it down, no one was sure what to do with the remaining 8,000-foot hole in the ground. Then, in 2007, the National Science Foundation decided that an 8,000-foot hole would be the perfect place to put its proposed Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory, or DUSEL, a massive research complex that will include the world’s deepest underground lab.
Almost a Mile Below South Dakota, A Race to Find Dark Matter, 1/3/11
The 500th alien world appears to have been discovered, according to extrasolar planet trackers.
Less than 20 years after confirming the first planet beyond our own solar system, astronomers have bagged exoplanet No. 500. The milestone was reached Friday (Nov. 19), according to the Extrasolar Planets Encyclopedia, a database compiled by astrobiologist Jean Schneider of the Paris-Meudon Observatory.
For such reasons, it makes little sense to permanently anoint one particular world as "exoplanet 500," Schneider told SPACE.com
500th Alien Planet Discovered, With Hundreds More to Come, 11/23/10
Astronomers have confirmed the first discovery of an alien planet in our Milky Way that came from another galaxy, they announced today.
The Jupiter-like planet orbits a star that was born in another galaxy and later captured by our own Milky Way sometime between 6 billion and 9 billion years ago, researchers said. A side effect of the galactic cannibalism brought a faraway planet within astronomers' reach for the first time ever.
First Alien Planet From Another Galaxy Discovered, 11/18/10
Something big is going on at the center of the galaxy, and astronomers are happy to say they don’t know what it is.
A group of scientists working with data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope said Tuesday that they had discovered two bubbles of energy erupting from the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The bubbles, they said at a news conference and in a paper to be published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal, extend 25,000 light years up and down from each side of the galaxy and contain the energy equivalent to 100,000 supernova explosions.
“They’re big,” said Doug Finkbeiner of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, leader of the team that discovered them
Bubbles of Energy Are Found in Galaxy, 11/9/10
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy.
What we see are two gamma-ray-emitting bubbles that extend 25,000 light-years north and south of the galactic center," said Doug Finkbeiner, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., who first recognized the feature. "We don't fully understand their nature or origin."
The structure spans more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus, and it may be millions of years old. A paper about the findings has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
NASA'S Fermi Telescope Discovers Giant Structure In Our Galaxy, 11/9/10
Astrophysics deals mostly with things that are so distant ? thousands or billions of light years away ? that we can't ever hope to see them up close. But clever scientists can do the next best thing to making a light-year journey; they can recreate some of the celestial occurrences in a lab. In effect, they can bring parts of the sky down here to earth.
That's what physicists in Italy have done. Using nothing more than lasers, a sample of pure glass, and sensitive detectors they have created a miniature environment that mimics the conditions of a black hole
Imitation Black Hole Seen On Earth, 10/30/10
Astronomers have discovered bucket loads of buckyballs in space. They used NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope to find the little carbon spheres throughout our Milky Way galaxy - in the space between stars and around three dying stars. What's more, Spitzer detected buckyballs around a fourth dying star in a nearby galaxy in staggering quantities - the equivalent in mass to about 15 of our moons.
Buckyballs, also known as fullerenes, are soccer-ball-shaped molecules consisting of 60 linked carbon atoms. They are named for their resemblance to the architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, an example of which is found at the entrance to Disney's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Fla.
Spitzer Telescope Finds Space Buckyballs Thrive, 10/28/10
An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold ? comfortable enough for life to exist, researchers announced today
And the planet's discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there.
Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent," said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. "I have almost no doubt about it."
Odds of Life on Newfound Earth-Size Planet '100 Percent,' Astronomer Says, 9/29/10
This video zoom shows images of SN1987A from ESO telescopes, ending with an artist's impression of a close-up of the exploding star.
Astronomers have for the first time obtained a 3D view of the aftermath of a star exploding (which is known as a supernova).
Exploding star 'viewed in 3D', 8/4/10
While other satellite observatories zoom in on exoplanets or snap photos of star birth on faraway galaxies, the European Space Agency’s Planck Telescope is studying the bigger picture. After a year in service, the observatory has surveyed the cosmos and provided researchers with its first all-sky image, a snapshot of the entire universe as viewed from Planck’s position in the sky.
The image is exactly what the Planck mission was designed to produce, but the milestone picture of the universe is just the beginning from a scientific standpoint. Said the ESA’s Director of Science and Robotic Exploration David Southwood in a press release: “We’re not giving the answer. We are opening the door to an Eldorado where scientists can seek the nuggets that will lead to deeper understanding of how our Universe came to be and how it works now. The image itself and its remarkable quality is a tribute to the engineers who built and have operated Planck. Now the scientific harvest must begin.”
Planck Telescope Stitches Together Picture of the Entire Universe, 7/6/10
Like a green ribbon snaking its way out into space this stunning image shows the famous Southern Lights from a rather unusual angle - above.
Taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS), this picture shows the aurora australis against the backdrop of Earth's horizon.
Revealed: The stunning green glow of the Southern Lights photographed by astronauts from ABOVE, 6/21/10
For the first time ever, astronomers have captured images of an exoplanet orbiting its star from one side of the star to the other. The orbit of the exoplanet is at about the same distance as that of Saturn to our Sun. After interpreting the data, scientists believe that this star system may have formed in the same way as our Solar Sytem.
, 6/11/10
There is something strange in the cosmic neighbourhood. An unknown object in the nearby galaxy M82 has started sending out radio waves, and the emission does not look like anything seen anywhere in the universe before.
Mysterious radio waves emitted from nearby galaxy, 4/14/10
After hovering over Mount Everest and the gorges that plunge to the Ganges, you are pulled through the Earth’s atmosphere to glimpse the inky black of space over Tibet’s high desert. So begins The Known Universe, a new film produced by the American Museum of Natural History that is part of a new exhibition, Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe, at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City.
The magic of this film, though, happens as the inky black expands. Pulling farther and farther from Earth, you see the deep blue of the Pacific give way to night as the Sun comes into focus, the orbits of the solar system shrink smaller and smaller, the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpio stretch and distort, and, as the Milky Way receeds, the spidery structure of millions of other galaxies come into view. Then, you reach the limit of the observable universe, the afterglow of the Big Bang. This light has taken more than 13.7 billion years to reach our planet, and you return, back to Earth, to two lakes that are nestled between Mount Kailash and Mount Gurla Mandhata in the Himalayas.
The Known Universe Scientifically Rendered For All to See
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