April 2017 – Astronomy Now

U.S. instrument team to fly camera on South Korean Moon mission

28 April 2017 Stephen Clark

A camera developed by scientists at Arizona State University will join four foreign-built instruments on South Korea’s first lunar orbiter set for launch at the end of 2018, NASA announced Friday.

Ripples in cosmic web measured using rare double quasars

28 April 2017 Astronomy Now

Astronomers believe that matter in intergalactic space is distributed in a vast network of interconnected filamentary structures known as the cosmic web. Nearly all the atoms in the universe reside in this web, vestigial material left over from the Big Bang.

New survey hints at ancient origin for Cold Spot

27 April 2017 Astronomy Now

A supervoid is unlikely to explain a ‘Cold Spot’ in the cosmic microwave background, according to the results of a new survey, leaving room for exotic explanations like a collision between universes.

Cassini contacts Earth after flying inside Saturn’s rings

27 April 2017 Stephen Clark

Ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Thursday the Cassini spacecraft survived its first trip between Saturn and its rings, the closest any probe has ever come to the planet.

Keck Observatory captures rare high-resolution images of exploded star

26 April 2017 Astronomy Now

Scientists will now be able to measure how fast the universe is truly expanding with the kind of precision not possible before. This, after an international team of astronomers led by Stockholm University, Sweden, captured four distinct images of a gravitationally lensed Type Ia supernova, named iPTF16geu.

Gravitational wave testbed repurposed as comet dust detector

26 April 2017 Stephen Clark

In the final months of Europe’s LISA Pathfinder mission, scientists have found an unexpected use for the trailblazing testbed for a future gravitational wave observatory by tracking the tiny dings made by microscopic particles that strike the spacecraft in deep space, exploiting the impacts to learn about the population of dust grains cast off by comets and asteroids across the solar system.

Cassini sails by Saturn’s moon Titan for last time

24 April 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft sped by the moon Titan on Saturday, using the hazy world’s gravity to slingshot the probe on a trailblazing trajectory to explore the region between Saturn’s hydrogen-helium atmosphere and the planet’s famous rings for the first time.

The arrhythmic beating of a black hole heart

21 April 2017 Astronomy Now

At the center of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, there is a large elliptical galaxy called NGC 4696. Deeper still, there is a supermassive black hole buried within the core of this galaxy.

Our home world framed by the rings of Saturn

21 April 2017 Astronomy Now

A new view from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows planet Earth as a point of light between the icy rings of Saturn.

Look out for Lyrid meteors around 22 April

21 April 2017 Ade Ashford

If skies are clear between midnight and the first glimmer of dawn this weekend, you may get to see some celestial fireworks from the Lyrid meteor shower. While it may not be the richest of the annual shooting star displays, the Lyrids can deliver a few fireballs and a portion of these medium-speed meteors can leave glowing trains.