July 2015 – Page 4 – Astronomy Now

Build your own Pluto!

20 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Explore Pluto from the comfort of your own home with Greg Smye-Rumsby’s printable globe. Some assembly required!

Dead galaxies may be packed with dark matter

20 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Research using powerful computer simulations to study galaxies that have fallen into the Coma Cluster, one of the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the universe roughly 300 million light-years from Earth, suggests that it could contain as much as 100 times more dark matter than visible matter, according to an Australian study.

Photographing Pluto from the UK

19 July 2015 Ade Ashford

Did you use our observing guide to view or image Pluto? Following New Horizons’ historic flyby, one budding astrophotographer living in a light-polluted UK town fulfils a long-time ambition to capture Pluto for himself.

First detailed images of rare asteroid to pass close by Earth on 19 July

19 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Asteroid 2011 UW158 passes just 6.4 lunar distances (1.53 million miles) miles from Earth at 3:37pm BST today. The 300 metre by 600 metre body was imaged in detail by radar during observations made with the Arecibo Observatory on 14 July, revealing that it is not a typical asteroid.

New Horizons discovers frozen plains in Pluto’s ‘heart’

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

A new close-up image of Pluto from New Horizons reveals a vast, craterless plain that appears to be no more than 100 million years old. This frozen region is north of Pluto’s icy mountains, in the centre-left of the heart feature, informally named “Tombaugh Regio” (Tombaugh Region) after Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

Gaia satellite and amateur astronomers spot one in a billion star

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The Gaia satellite has discovered a unique binary system where one star is ‘eating’ the other, but neither star has any hydrogen, the most common element in the universe. The system could hold the key to what causes Type Ia supernova explosions: one of the greatest mysteries in modern astrophysics.

Close-up of Charon’s ‘Mountain in a Moat’

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

In a tantalising preview of what the surface of Pluto’s largest moon will look like in sharper future close-ups from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, this image from 1.5 hours before closest approach shows a depression with a peak in the middle.

Diminishing solar activity may bring new Ice Age by 2030

17 July 2015 Astronomy Now

A new ice age is coming — if the prediction of a Lomonosov Moscow State University researcher and her colleagues is correct. A model that accurately predicts variations in the Sun’s magnetic field suggests a sharp decline in solar output during the years 2030-2040, producing conditions similar to that existing during the 17th century Maunder minimum.

Pluto: the ice plot thickens

16 July 2015 Astronomy Now

The latest spectra from New Horizons Ralph instrument reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. Methane ice in the dwarf planet’s north polar cap is diluted in a thick, transparent slab of nitrogen ice.

Pluto and Charon as never seen before

15 July 2015 Stephen Clark

A spectacular sampling of imagery from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft reveals mountains and water ice bedrock on Pluto, an active crust on its largest moon Charon and the first resolved views of the icy world’s tiny mini-moons.