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News: September 2009

Hubble strips down Virgo Cluster galaxies

Ram pressure stripping has been caught in the act in images of the Virgo Cluster snapped by the Hubble Space Telescope prior to its servicing mission earlier this year.

FULL STORY

 

The complete GigaGalaxy Zoom trilogy

The third and final installment of the GigaGalaxy Zoom project has now been released, completing the dive into our Milky Way Galaxy with a stunning view of the Lagoon Nebula.

FULL STORY

 

Glowing report brightens Arecibo's future

The Arecibo Observatory provides “unmatched precision and accuracy” in detecting asteroids or comets that could hit the Earth, says a report by the National Academy of Sciences that could help secure the observatory’s future.

FULL STORY

 

MESSENGER heads for third Mercury encounter

NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft will make its third and final pass of innermost planet Mercury tonight, on a gravity assist maneuver that will steer it into orbit around the Sun-drenched world in March 2011.

FULL STORY

 

New impact site for LCROSS water-hunting mission

Officials have shifted the target for next week's smash into the Moon by the LCROSS lunar impactor mission after a new analysis showed another crater has a better chance of yielding results verifying the existence of water at the south pole.

FULL STORY

 

SMART-1's snap of LCROSS crash scene

The European Space Agency's SMART-1 team has released an image of next week's impact site of NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, LCROSS.

FULL STORY

 

Water ice seen in fresh craters on Mars

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MRO, has revealed frozen water hidden just below the surface of the red planet in fresh impact craters located about half-way between the north pole and the equator.

FULL STORY

 

Scientists announce evidence of water on Moon

Data from the Indian Chandrayaan-1 Moon mission, supported with similar data collected during Deep Impact and Cassini flybys of the Moon, has provided unambiguous evidence of water locked up in the lunar soil, bringing dreams of a sustainable Moon base one step closer.

FULL STORY

 

Buried ice holds clues on Mars climate cycles

Three-dimensional radar imaging of Martian north-polar ice layers courtesy of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter matches climate swing predictions for the last few million years.

FULL STORY

 

Keck telescopes probe
dual dust discs

Using the 10-metre Keck Observatory telescopes, astronomers have probed one of the most compact dust discs ever resolved around another star.

FULL STORY

 

New ring quirks revealed during Saturn equinox

A slate of new images taken during Saturn's equinox season reveal the finer detail of ruffles, kinks, dust clouds and even impact events occurring within the giant planet's rings.

FULL STORY

 

Spitzer spots swirling clump of planetary stuff

According to new observations made by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, a star or planet appears to be pushing a clump of planet-forming material around a young star.

FULL STORY

 

White dwarf's slow spin
not just skin-deep

By borrowing a technique used by seismologists to probe Earth's interior, astronomers have profiled for the first time the internal rotation of a white dwarf star, and find that it rotates at the same slow speed as its surface.

FULL STORY

 

Chandra's portrait of
Milky Way centre

Following ESO's photo release of the Milky Way's Galactic Centre yesterday, the Chandra X-ray Observatory presents this remarkable portrait, exposing new levels of complexity and intrigue at the heart of our Galaxy.

FULL STORY

 

Vivid vista shines light on Galactic Centre

The European Southern Observatory has today released the second of three new breath-taking portraits showing the Milky Way in unprecedented detail.

FULL STORY

 

Planck takes first look
into the past

ESA's mission to study the very early Universe – Planck – has successfully completed its test survey of the sky.

FULL STORY

 

Should Mars really be black?

New laboratory studies suggest that Mars' red dust is formed by the grinding of surface rocks, and not through rusting by oceans that once flooded the planet's surface.

FULL STORY

 

LRO hints at water on Moon

NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, LRO, has entered its mapping orbit of the Moon and has already found evidence that hints at widespread hydrogen, and water frost at the south pole.

FULL STORY

 

Troubling binary stars are tipped over

Tipped over stars are to blame for a peculiar double star system in which the stars are revolving around one another four times slower than they should, according to new research published in the 17 September issue of Nature.

FULL STORY

 

The quiet Sun's
silent storms

We shouldn't be misled into thinking that a lack of sunspots means a quiet Sun, say researchers from the USA who have found that our planet was bombarded with high speed streams of solar energy throughout 2008.

FULL STORY

 

Swift's portrait of Andromeda

Taking time out from its typical agenda of searching for distant cosmic explosions, NASA's Swift satellite has acquired the highest resolution view of the Andromeda galaxy in ultraviolet.

FULL STORY

 

Rocky exo-world
breaks new records

A small planet 500 light years away has been found to be the fastest moving planet known, whizzing around its star once every 20.4 hours. To orbit so quickly the planet, known as CoRoT-7b, must be only 2.5 million kilometres from its sun. It is the first planet to be unambiguously confirmed as a rocky planet.

FULL STORY

 

A new formula for finding habitable worlds

To ascertain which exoplanets are more likely to support life, scientists from the Open University are assembling a revolutionary new 'habitability index' that is being presented for the first time today at EPSC.

FULL STORY

 

Stuff of life may have been cooked up on young Earth

Compounds crucial to the evolution of organic molecules, which first existed between 4.5 and 3.8 billion years ago and that paved the way for life to eventually form on Earth, have been recreated in a laboratory for the first time in conditions matching those of the early Earth.

FULL STORY

 

New views of Solar System's largest moon

In two separate studies, scientists have created the first global geological map of Jupiter's moon Ganymede and offered new insight into the complex electromagnetic interactions between Jupiter, Ganymede and Io.

FULL STORY

 

More evidence for Venus' watery past

The Venus Express spacecraft has measured concentrations of water vapour in the planet's atmosphere and found proof that the solar wind has stripped away Venus' once plentiful oceans.

FULL STORY

 

Mars' dried up lakes and carbon dioxide ice

Cracks intersecting into a network of polygonal shapes on the floors of large craters and impact basins on Mars are the result of dessication caused by the evaporation of lakes, according to a new analysis presented today at EPSC.

FULL STORY

 

Refurbished Hubble gets
off to a flying start

NASA scientists today unveiled the first spectacular images captured by the recently repaired Hubble Space Telescope.

FULL STORY

 

Titan's wet north pole

A more global view of the landscape on Saturn's moon Titan shows the extent of the river channels, lakes, continents and vast plains of dunes that cover its surface.

FULL STORY

 

Haumea's spot rich with organics?

A dark red spot discovered on dwarf planet Haumea appears to be richer in minerals and organic compounds than the surrounding icy surface.

FULL STORY

 

Comet Holmes produced mini-comets

The outburst of Comet 17P/Holmes was so violent that it blew huge chunks of the comet's surface clean off, according to a new analysis of images taken in November 2007.

FULL STORY

 

Saturn's giant
lightning storm

The longest lightning storm ever seen has been raging in the atmosphere of Saturn since January 2009, it has been revealed today at the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC).

FULL STORY

 

ESO unveils interactive 360 degree view of night sky

The first of three images of ESO’s GigaGalaxy Zoom project – a new magnificent 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky as seen from ESO’s observing sites in Chile – has just been released online

FULL STORY

 

Target crater for LCROSS impacts revealed

NASA has selected a final destination for its Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) which will impact the crater Cabeus A on 9 October.

FULL STORY

 

Asteroids may reveal details of Jupiter's formation

The asteroids Vesta and Ceres may have borne the brunt of Jupiter’s increasing influence in the early Solar System, according to new research being presented today at EPSC.

FULL STORY

 

Saturn's radiation shield

Newly released results from the European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) being held in Potsdam, Germany all this week show how Saturn's moon Tethys is protecting the ringed planet from the onslaught of solar storms.

FULL STORY

 

Giant planet holds
comets hostage

Jupiter has been caught ‘kidnapping’ comets when they venture too close, forcing them to become temporary satellites of the great planet before they are slingshot away or spiral into Jupiter.

FULL STORY

 

Magnetic fields sculpt
stellar growth

New research shows that cosmic magnetic fields play a more dominant role in star formation than previously believed.

FULL STORY

 

Galactic cannibalism on our cosmic doorstep

A new study has found evidence for the Andromeda Galaxy having gobbled up other nearby galaxies, and the Triangulum Galaxy is next on the menu.

FULL STORY

 

Astronomers uncover celestial Rosetta Stone

Using ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope, astronomers have uncovered the first close-up of a white dwarf star circling a companion star that could explode in a dramatic supernova event in a few million years.

FULL STORY

 

The hunt for
habitable exomoons

While astronomers keenly await the discovery of Earth-like planets around other stars, the possibility of habitable moons should not be ruled out either, say scientists at University College London.

FULL STORY

 

The Milky Way's
not-so-distant cousin

A new image from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals an edge-on galaxy much like our own Milky Way.

FULL STORY

 

Milky Way will be 'puffed up', not ripped apart

New computer simulations conducted by Ohio State University astronomers suggest that the Milky Way will meet its fate by being 'puffed up' rather than ripped apart.

FULL STORY

 

Precision measurements of space curvature

Using the continent-wide Very Long Baseline Array, scientists have made a precise measurement of the curvature of space caused by the Sun's gravity.

FULL STORY

 

Most distant supermassive black hole discovered

A giant galaxy wrapped around a supermassive black hole seen as it was 12.8 billion years ago is the most distant behemoth ever found.

FULL STORY

 

Ocean and atmosphere patterns linked to solar cycle

Subtle connections between the solar cycle, the stratosphere and the tropical Pacific Ocean generate regular weather patterns that could help predict the intensity of climate phenomena years in advance.

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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