Archive – Page 155 – Astronomy Now

NASA confirms contribution to Japanese-led Mars mission

20 November 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA announced Thursday it will fund development of a scientific instrument that will fly on Japan’s Martian Moons Exploration mission, a robotic probe set for launch in 2024 to bring back the first samples from Mars’ largest moon Phobos.

Jovian Tempest

19 November 2017 Astronomy Now

This colour-enhanced image of a massive, raging storm in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere was captured by NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its ninth close flyby of the gas giant planet.

Arecibo Observatory will keep scanning the skies

16 November 2017 Stephen Clark

Two months after escaping the destruction brought to Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria, the famed Arecibo Observatory will get a new lease on life as the National Science Foundation seeks funding partners to keep the radio telescope aimed at the cosmos.

Closest temperature world orbiting quiet star discovered

16 November 2017 Astronomy Now

A temperate Earth-sized planet has been discovered only 11 light-years from the Solar System. The new world has the designation Ross 128 b and is now the second-closest temperate planet to be detected after Proxima b. It is also the closest planet to be discovered orbiting an inactive red dwarf star, which may increase the likelihood that this planet could potentially sustain life.

Don’t miss the Leonid meteor shower on 17 November

16 November 2017 Ade Ashford

The maximum of the annual Leonid meteor shower, predicted to occur around nightfall on Friday, 17 November for observers in Western Europe and the UK, favourably coincides with a new Moon this year. However, observers in the British Isles may have to wait until around midnight to see about ten of the famously swift, bright Leonids per hour.

Zwicky Transient Facility opens its eyes to the volatile cosmos

15 November 2017 Astronomy Now

A new robotic camera with the ability to capture hundreds of thousands of stars and galaxies in a single shot has taken its first image of the sky, an event astronomers refer to as “first light.”

Hitomi mission glimpses cosmic recipe for the nearby Universe

14 November 2017 Astronomy Now

Thanks to an in-depth look into the composition of gas in the Perseus galaxy cluster, Japan’s Hitomi mission has given scientists new insights into the stellar explosions that formed its chemical elements.

The dynamic duo: Jupiter’s independently pulsating X-ray aurorae

10 November 2017 Astronomy Now

Jupiter’s intense northern and southern lights, or aurorae, behave independently of each other according to a new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray and ESA’s XMM-Newton observatories.

Twinkle in a forming star suggests existence of a very young planet

10 November 2017 Astronomy Now

An international team of researchers have found an infrequent variation in the brightness of a forming star. This 18-month recurring twinkle is not only an unexpected phenomenon for scientists, but its repeated behavior suggests the presence of a hidden planet.

Hubble spots expanding light echo around supernova

10 November 2017 Astronomy Now

Light from a supernova explosion in the nearby starburst galaxy M82 is reverberating off a huge dust cloud in interstellar space.