Archive – Page 340 – Astronomy Now

See asteroid 2004 BL86 whizz by Earth

17 January 2015 Ade Ashford

Asteroid 2004 BL86 skims past Earth at a distance of just three times the Moon on the evening of 26th January. When best placed, it will become bright enough to see from the UK with small telescopes or large binoculars. Here’s our hour-by-hour observing guide.

Baader Nano Tracker

17 January 2015 Steve Ringwood

Would you like to photograph Comet Lovejoy but don’t have a driven telescope mount? Now you can capture long-exposure wide-angle scenes with a DSLR camera using Baader’s diminutive yet fully-featured Nano Tracker.

Rosetta sees a blaze of cometary activity

17 January 2015 Astronomy Now

The high resolution camera aboard Rosetta has captured a stunning view of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko showing multiple jets streaming away from the surface.

Professor Mark Sims on the discovery that Beagle 2 made it to the surface

16 January 2015 Astronomy Now

Professor Mark Sims of Leicester University speaks to Astronomy Now’s Keith Cooper on the discovery that Beagle 2 made it to the surface on Christmas Day 2003.

Lost Beagle 2 spacecraft found on Mars

16 January 2015 Keith Cooper

The UK’s Beagle 2 mission to Mars, which was lost in 2003 as it entered the red planet’s atmosphere, has been rediscovered by NASA’s eagle eye in the Martian sky, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Trans-Neptunian study suggests Solar System contains more planets

16 January 2015 Astronomy Now

Research conducted in Spain and the UK suggests that at least two unknown planets exist beyond Pluto, whose gravitational influence determines the orbits and strange distribution of objects observed beyond Neptune.

Funding approved for 3200-megapixel Large Synoptic Survey Telescope

15 January 2015 Astronomy Now

When the LSST telescope begins operations atop Cerro Pachón in Chile, it will use the largest digital camera ever built and produce the widest, deepest and fastest views of the night sky ever observed.

Mars meets Neptune in the evening sky

15 January 2015 Ade Ashford

Outermost planet Neptune is currently visible in binoculars if you know just where to look. Fortunately, Mars forms a convenient guide on the night of 19th January as the two planets appear close together in the early evening sky.

First light for new exoplanet-hunting telescopes

15 January 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers extend the search for Neptune-sized and smaller exoplanets to the southern sky with the Next-Generation Transit Survey — a new array of twelve robotic telescopes built by a UK, Swiss and German consortium.

10 years since we landed on Titan

14 January 2015 Keith Cooper

Ten years ago today, on 14 January 2005, a compact, flattened cylinder called Huygens, chock-full of sensors, cameras and scientific experiments, went hurtling through the orange skies of the mysterious moon Titan.