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News: February 2010

Light, wind and fire

ESO's latest stellar portrait encapsulates the light, wind and heat given off by massive stars incubating within NGC 346, the brightest star-forming region in our neighbouring galaxy the Small Magellanic Cloud.

FULL STORY

 

Milky Way packed with
alien stars

Around one-quarter of the globular star clusters hosted by our Milky Way have migrated here from other galaxies, new research finds.

FULL STORY

 

AstroFest on air!

Listen to Richie Jarvis and Nick Howes talking about the treasures they found at the AstroFest 2010 exhibition as part of Under British Skies, the all new UK astronomy slot on Astronomy.FM.

LISTEN

 

New jets spray from Enceladus

Images captured by Cassini as it swooped past Enceladus' south polar region in November reveal a plethora of new jets and plumes spraying out from prominent fractures.

FULL STORY

 

Young-looking galaxies
race to oblivion

Four galaxies on a crash course with each other have been imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, revealing that these dwarf spirals are curiously fresh-faced and seem to have been in stasis for ten billion years.

FULL STORY

 

Alcohol masers reveal massive stars’ magnetic birth

Powerful magnetic fields play a much more dominant role in the creation of massive stars than they had been given credit, confirming that giant stars and smaller dwarf stars like our Sun form in very similar ways.

FULL STORY

 

Type Ia supernova caused by merging white dwarfs

The supernova explosions in faraway galaxies that are used to measure the expansion of the Universe may be caused by the mergers of two white dwarfs, rather than single white dwarfs exploding, say new observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. But don’t panic – the concept of dark energy is still safe.

FULL STORY

 

Preview the March issue!

Editor Keith Cooper previews the March 2010 issue of Astronomy Now magazine

WATCH NOW

 

WISE showcases medley
of first images

Scientists have released the first images from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), showcasing a variety of celestial objects from comets to star forming regions and galaxy clusters.

FULL STORY

 

Forensic evidence reveals ancient stars

Some of the oldest, and purest, stars in the Universe have been discovered by astronomers working with the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the European Southern Observatory, in the process plugging a gaping hole in our theories of how the Milky Way formed.

FULL STORY

 

Fermi closes in
on cosmic rays

New images from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope are helping astronomers take a step closer to uncovering the source of the Universe's most energetic particles – cosmic rays.

FULL STORY

 

Unique images reveal Saturn's dynamic aurorae

Taking advantage of Saturn's edge-on ring orientation, astronomers have created a unique movie featuring aurorae at both poles that reveal subtleties between the northern and southern auroral regions.

FULL STORY

 

Stepping into the
Martian past

Images captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) of 152 kilometre-wide Gale crater provide a detailed window into the past environmental changes on the red planet.

FULL STORY

 

A dynamic portrait of
stellar birth

A colourful new image from the Gemini North Telescope reveals the chaotic nature of stellar nursery Sharpless 2-106.

FULL STORY

 

Gassy galaxies were perfect star factories

Large galaxies that were present in the first few billion years after the big bang were bloated on gas, resulting in a rash of star formation that outstripped the current rate at which stars are born in the Universe today by up to ten times.

FULL STORY

 

Orion vista reveals high-speed antics of young stars

Captured by ESO's new Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy, VISTA, the Orion Nebula is revealed in greater detail than ever before.

FULL STORY

 

More evidence for water
on Enceladus

Unexpected populations of charged molecules and dust tasted by the Cassini spacecraft as it plunged through the plumes of Enceledus provide further evidence that the moon harbours liquid water beneath its icy shell.

FULL STORY

 

Hubble captures Pluto's seasonal changes

The most detailed images of Pluto have been captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, revealing a world undergoing seasonal surface colour and brightness changes.

FULL STORY

 

Forming present day
spiral galaxies

A new demographic census of galaxy types in the local and distant Universe suggests that more than half of the present-day spiral galaxies had so-called peculiar shapes only six billion years ago thanks to merging and collision events.

FULL STORY

 

Suspected asteroid collision leaves trail of destruction

The Hubble Space Telescope has zoomed in on the potential crash scene of two asteroids in the Asteroid Belt, showing evidence for a never before seen head-on collision.

FULL STORY

 

Obama kills Moon program, endorses commercial space

On the seventh anniversary of the 2003 Columbia disaster, the Obama administration unveiled a sweeping change of course for the nation's civilian space program Monday, killing NASA's post-Columbia moon program and shifting development and operation of new rockets and capsules from the government to private industry.

FULL STORY

 

Record low for brown dwarf

A bizarre failed star with a record-breaking low surface temperature has been discovered by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, extending the range of extremes the properties of these kinds of objects can possess.

FULL STORY

 
 

Back to latest news

2010 Yearbook
Our latest 132-page Astronomy Now special edition is an extravaganza of astronomy for the year ahead, with a complete 30-page guide to observing the planets, moon, meteor showers, two solar eclipses, and the deep sky in 2010.
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Take the tour!
A 100-page special edition from the creators of Astronomy Now magazine, The Grand Tour of the Universe takes readers from one end of the Universe to the other and, in doing so, asks the question "just how big is the Universe?"
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Infinity Rising
This special publication features the photography of British astro-imager Nik Szymanek and covers a range of photographic methods from basic to advanced. Beautiful pictures of the night sky can be obtained with a simple camera and tripod before tackling more difficult projects, such as guided astrophotography through the telescope and CCD imaging.
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Guide to the Constellations
Astronomy Now presents this 100-page, full-colour guide to the 68 constellations visible from the British Isles by Neil Bone, the respected amateur astronomer and writer.
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Exploring Mars
Astronomy Now is pleased to announce the publication of Exploring Mars. The very best images of Mars taken by orbiting spacecraft and NASA's Spirit and Opportunity rovers fill up the 98 glossy pages of this special edition!
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