March 2015 – Page 5 – Astronomy Now

Boldly gone, but we can still see your asteroid, Mr. Spock

13 March 2015 Ade Ashford

As a nice way to celebrate the memory of the late Leonard Nimoy, over the coming week astrophotographers have a chance to image the 13-mile-wide minor planet named after Mr. Spock, the Star Trek character he shall always be most closely associated with.

Hubble views of Ganymede’s aurorae suggest a vast salty subsurface ocean

13 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the largest moon in our Solar System and the only moon with its own magnetic field. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has the best evidence yet for a 60-mile deep underground saline ocean on Ganymede, believed to contain more water than all the water on Earth’s surface.

Rippled Milky Way may be much larger than previously estimated

12 March 2015 Astronomy Now

New research indicates that the Milky Way may be 50 percent larger than previously believed. Furthermore, the Galaxy’s shape is not just a flattened spiral, but contoured into several concentric ripples.

Space station crew returns to Earth

12 March 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA photographer Bill Ingalls captured some stunning views of a Soyuz capsule returning to Earth bringing home a space station crew.

Eclipse 2012: Total eclipse, Total brilliance

12 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Our Managing Editor, Steven Young, travelled with Explorers Astronomy Tours to Australia in the hope that the clouds parted for long enough to see the total solar eclipse of November 2012.

Hydrothermal activity in subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus

12 March 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft finds the first evidence of active hot-water chemistry beyond planet Earth on Saturn’s ocean moon Enceladus — results that have important implications for the habitability of icy worlds.

Pluto-bound probe tweaks its trajectory

12 March 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft fine-tuned its path toward Pluto on Tuesday, firing its rocket thrusters for 93 seconds to aim for a fleeting flyby of the distant dwarf planet July 14.

Sun emits significant solar flare

12 March 2015 Astronomy Now

On March 11th at 4:22 pm GMT, the Sun emitted a powerful solar flare that registered 2.2 on the X-class scale. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the event in stunning detail.

The Moon meets Saturn in the claws of the Scorpion

11 March 2015 Ade Ashford

The 20-day-old waning gibbous Moon has a close encounter with ringed planet Saturn in northern Scorpius in the pre-dawn hours of Thursday, March 12th.

Dwarf galaxy’s gamma-rays hint at dark matter

11 March 2015 Kerry Hebden

An excess of gamma rays detected coming from a recently discovered dwarf galaxy named Reticulum 2, which is 98,000 light years from Earth, could provide researchers with clues about dark matter, which is the mysterious stuff that makes up most of the Universe.