News: October 2010
Mars' water went underground
NASA’s troubled Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has found evidence that liquid water once seeped underground from the Martian surface, despite the rover still being stuck in a spot of bother.
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Surprise of the super neutron star
A heavyweight neutron star has proven to be the most massive of its kind ever found, helping scientists narrow down the range of possibilities for what lurks within its exotic interior.
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Asteroid impact could deplete ozone layer
An asteroid impacting into one of Earth's deep oceans would have an obvious effect – a tsunami – but a new study focuses on an equally alarming consequence: depletion of the Earth's protective ozone layer.
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International Space Station experiment detects nova
An X-ray detector on the International Space Station that alerted astronomers to a giant blast of X-rays, led to the discovery of a previously unseen nova.
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Underground aquifers formed martian lakes
A study of martian terrain in the northern lowlands suggests that water discharged from underground reservoirs slowly over time, rather than in catastrophic flooding events.
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Lunar impact mission scooped up more than water
NASA's robotic mission to plunge an empty rocket stage into a lunar crater last year confirmed the presence of large quantities of water ice and hydrogen, but it also found traces of silver and mercury, scientists said Thursday.
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Exoplanet's hot spot
in wrong place
Observations of a distant hot-jupiter by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveal a hot spot in the planet's atmosphere in an unexpected location.
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New method for galaxy growth observed
A team of European astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) have found evidence for a new mechanism for galaxy growth.
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SETI – should we transmit?
Earlier this month experts from around the world descended on the Royal Society to discuss whether we should be transmitting messages into space to alert extra terrestrial civilisations to our existence, or whether we should be keeping quiet. Astronomy Now reporter Gemma Lavender finds out.
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Hubble sees aftermath of asteroid smash-up
Using a sharp-eyed camera installed by space shuttle astronauts last year, the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a long, glittering tail of dust streaming from an asteroid. Scientists believe the mysterious object was the victim of a collision in the asteroid belt in early 2009. READ MORE
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Supernova smothered
by own dust
A 50 solar mass star ending its life in a supernova event is obscured by its own dust cloud, the first of its kind ever viewed by astronomers. READ MORE
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Astronomer captures asteroid's close pass
Amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins from Utah captured impressive images of asteroid 2010 TD54 that passed the Earth with just 46,000 kilometres to spare on Tuesday. READ MORE
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Clues for life in underground Mars & Titan's atmosphere
Carbonate rocks that once existed six kilometres below the surface of Mars points to ancient seas, while life's ingredients could also be formed in Titan's atmosphere, say two separate reports. READ MORE
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Neptune not guilty of
moving Kuiper Belt
New research presented at the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences meeting last week challenges popular theory regarding Neptune's role in shaping the Kuiper Belt.
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Small asteroid to pass within Earth-Moon System today
A small asteroid will fly past Earth early Tuesday within the Earth-Moon system. The asteroid, 2010 TD54, will have its closest approach to Earth's surface at an altitude of about 45,000 kilometres. READ MORE
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Hey, Osborne! Leave our Geeks Alone!
Two thousand scientists descended upon The Treasury in London on Saturday to protest against the rumoured twenty-five percent cuts that the science spending budget is facing in next week's Comprehensive Spending Review. READ MORE
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Early heatwave stunts
dwarf galaxy growth
Measurements using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have shown that the growth of early galaxies was stunted early in their formation by fierce radiation blasts from active galaxies and quasars. READ MORE
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WISE warms up to new mission phase
NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) may have reached the end of its infrared mapping phase, but it now embarks on a warmer mission to track nearby comets, asteroids and brown dwarfs. READ MORE
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Infrared view of the
Unicorn wows
A new image taken by the VISTA telescope shows a remarkable landscape within the constellation of the Unicorn, only visible in the infrared. READ MORE
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Venus Express skims through planet's upper atmosphere
A first for exploration at Venus, ESA's Venus Express satellite has conducted a series of low passes through the planet's upper polar atmosphere to find it is much thinner than expected. READ MORE
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WMAP finishes nine-year probe of infant Universe
The WMAP satellite devoted to studying the genesis of the universe has finished nine years of observations, but NASA will continue funding the mission for two more years so researchers can extract every bit of science from its ground-breaking observations. READ MORE
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Eris' nitrogen-ice
surface revealed
By marrying up laboratory studies of ice to telescopic observations of dwarf planet Eris, scientists have found that the planet's surface composition bears striking resemblance to that of Pluto. READ MORE
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IBEX reveals dynamic
Solar System edge
A new set of all-sky maps from NASA’s Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) shows that conditions at the edge of our Solar System are more dynamic than first thought. READ MORE
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Milky Way sidelined in galactic tug of war
Gas formations and streams between and around the Magellanic Clouds originally attributed to the Milky Way’s gravity are now proposed to be due to interactions between the Clouds themselves. READ MORE
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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.
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?"
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.
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.
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!