NASA’s “What’s Up” video series highlights Jupiter this month, and explains the upcoming Juno mission set to launch in August 2011.
Category: News
Astro-Art
I can’t repost the images here, because they are copyrighted by the artist, but be sure to check out this series of photographs by renowned photographer Michael Soluri featuring many of the specialized tools used by astronauts on various missions. Beautiful photographs of intriguing instruments, some strange, others very close to what one might find…
Smooth as Glass
The dark spot in the middle of this image is Ontario Lacus, possibly a shallow lake filled with liquid methane located near the south pole of Titan, imaged with synthetic-aperture radar by Cassini. Ontario Lacus on Titan covers about 5,800 square miles in area—about four-fifths the size of Lake Ontario here on Earth.
Hello From Earth!
Send a shout-out to a neighboring star system! This is what Australia’s COSMOS Magazine is letting anyone who’s interested do – from all over the world – in celebration of the country’s National Science Week. Their target: a planet called Gliese 581d, a so-called “super-Earth” orbiting a small red dwarf star just over 20 light-years…
Pluto Reinstated?
Will Pluto be reissued its former status as a full-fledged planet? While it won’t necessarily be a topic of debate at next week’s meeting of the International Astronomical Union – the group in charge of, amongst other things, the official naming of all things extraterrestrial and thus the group responsible for voting Pluto off the…
Taking a Hit
Between the hours of 6am and noon EDT on Monday, July 20, something smashed into Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system. And here’s the scar to prove it. First noticed as a dark blotch by amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley, monitoring the giant planet via telescope from Australia, the impact was soon confirmed via…
A MONDo Idea
Interesting article from New Scientist: A Phantom Menace to Dark Matter Theory by Marcus Chown. In a nutshell, there’s a new theory that tries to explain why stars aren’t chucked out of the galaxy when they are near the edges, like a little kid on the playground merry-go-round. (Hey, it happens.) Newtonian physics say that this…
Tunguska Mystery Solved?
Inspired by a post on Universe Today by Nancy Atkinson: 1908 Tunguska Event Caused by Comet, New Research Reveals Long the subject of debate, with various theories ranging from meteorite impact to a comet to a flying saucer’s sudden engine meltdown, there’s actually strong evidence that the 1908 “Tunguska Event” was likely caused by the explosion of a…
Will Worlds Collide?
According to a June 10 article in New Scientist, studies on the variable nature of planetary orbits have shown some valid possibilities of collisions in the future. (The very distant future, luckily for us.) Due to the nature of Jupiter’s massive gravitational pull on the inner planets, especially Mercury, their orbits are susceptible to incredible…
Congratulations Cassini!
The Cassini mission web site, http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/, was voted Best Science Site in this year’s Peoples Voice Webby awards! A big congrats to the web team – and the entire mission team as well – for the recognition of excellence. I know I cast my vote for the site, as it’s well-made and a daily…
News: JPL Open House LIVE
JPL is hosting their annual Open House Saturday, May 2 and Sunday, May 3! Watch the live chat feed here as a special broadcast event all weekend. From the JPL site: JPL’s annual Open House gives the public an opportunity to meet scientists, watch demos and tour some of the laboratories where the next planetary…
Live Video: Around the World in 80 Telescopes
Follow along with astronomers, scientists and enthusiasts all around the world with live video feed from Around the World in 80 Telescopes! Part of the 100 Hours of Astronomy International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone Project, over the next 24 hours members of science teams from observatories worldwide will be participating in interviews and sharing their…
Lights in the Dark 