July 2015 – Page 3 – Astronomy Now

Pluto Dazzles in False Colour

24 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Four images from the New Horizon’s probe’s LORRI camera have been combined with colour from the Ralph instrument to create this spectacular false colour image of Pluto.

Simulated map of missing satellite galaxies could answer dark matter puzzle

23 July 2015 Astronomy Now

A ripple in the outskirts of the Milky Way led Rochester Institute of Technology astrophysicist Sukanya Chakrabarti to a previously undetected dwarf galaxy hidden under a veil of dark matter. Now Chakrabarti is refining her technique to uncover dwarf galaxies and understand dark matter by simulating the evolutionary histories of galactic discs and their satellite populations.

New Kepler planet could be Earth’s closest cousin yet

23 July 2015 Keith Cooper

A super-earth discovered by NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope and orbiting an older version of our Sun, is tantalising astronomers as potentially being the closest thing to a world like Earth.

Saturn’s moons pose for ‘mother and daughter’ portrait

23 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Dione and Tethys, two moons of Saturn, pose together for a mythological ‘mother and daughter’ portrait in this image from the Cassini mission.

Pulsar punches hole in stellar disc

23 July 2015 Astronomy Now

A fast-moving pulsar appears to have punched a hole in a disc of gas around its companion star and launched a fragment of the disc outward at a speed of about 4 million miles per hour. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is tracking this cosmic clump, which appears to be picking up speed as it moves out.

ALMA witnesses assembly of galaxies in early universe

22 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) has been used to detect the most distant clouds of star-forming gas yet found in normal galaxies in the early universe. The new observations allow astronomers to start to see how the first galaxies were built up and how they cleared the cosmic fog during the era of reionisation.

Pluto probe’s camera sees striking geologic boundary

21 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A newly discovered mountain range lies near the southwestern margin of Pluto’s Tombaugh Regio (Tombaugh Region), situated between bright, icy plains and dark, heavily-cratered terrain. This image was acquired by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) on July 14, 2015 from a distance of 48,000 miles.

Pluto’s moons Nix and Hydra resolved

21 July 2015 Stephen Clark

Two of Pluto’s mini-moons, the mysterious Nix and Hydra, have transitioned from featureless points of light into their own worlds with new imagery from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft.

Lick Observatory joins search for intelligent life in the universe

21 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The Breakthrough Prize Foundation announced a $100 million initiative to dramatically reinvigorate the search for intelligent life in the universe over the next ten years. Lick Observatory’s Automated Planet Finder (APF) Telescope will undertake a new deep and broad search for optical laser transmissions from nearby civilisations, if any exist.

Rosetta’s new view of Comet 67P

20 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is now less than a month from perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun occurring on 13 August. ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft captured this view of enhanced activity from the comet’s twin-lobed nucleus on 7 July.