News

Blue aurorae in Mars’ sky visible to the naked eye

For the first time, an international team of scientists from NASA, the Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics of Grenoble (IPAG), the European Space Agency and Aalto University in Finland, have predicted that colourful, glowing aurorae can be seen by the naked eye on a terrestrial planet other than Earth — Mars.

News

Merging galaxies break radio silence

A large Hubble survey confirms an unambiguous link between the presence of supermassive black holes that power high-speed, radio-signal-emitting jets and the merger history of their host galaxies. The results lend significant weight to the case for jets being the result of merging black holes.

Book Reviews

Introducing Astronomy

The production quality of this delightful little book by Iain Nicolson is remarkably lavish given the cover price, writes reviewer Steve Ringwood. While aimed at relative newbies to astronomy, its claim to be an introductory guide does not diminish its scope.

Book Reviews

Exmoor Dark Skies

Seb Jay’s book is intended to help promote the Exmoor International Dark Sky Reserve, acting both as a guide to the locations within the park that are suitable for observing from and as a beginners’ guide to the objects to be seen, says reviewer Owen Brazell.

News

Faint galaxies found hiding in the Virgo Cluster

A recent survey using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope has discovered hundreds of new galaxies in the Virgo Cluster, the nearest large cluster of galaxies. Most are extremely faint dwarf galaxies, objects hundreds of thousands of times less massive than our Milky Way, and amongst the faintest galaxies known in the universe.