Astronomy Now – Page 218

SOFIA in the right place at the right time for Pluto observations

4 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Currently operating out of Christchurch, New Zealand, the NASA/DLR SOFIA airborne 2.5-metre infrared telescope had to make last-minute flight path corrections to successfully secure observations of Pluto’s atmosphere as it occulted a distant star.

Dark matter map begins to reveal the universe’s early history

3 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using the 870 million-pixel Hyper Suprime-Cam camera on the 8.2-metre Subaru telescope in Hawaii have begun a wide-area survey of the distribution of dark matter in the universe.

Picture This

Buried in the heart of a giant

2 July 2015 Astronomy Now

This is a young open cluster of stars known as NGC 2367, an infant stellar grouping that lies at the centre of an immense and ancient structure on the margins of the Milky Way, captured by the Wide Field Imager (WFI) camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile.

Is the universe ringing like a crystal glass?

1 July 2015 Astronomy Now

Two physicists at the University of Southern Mississippi have discovered that the universe might not only be expanding, but also oscillating or “ringing” at the same time, something that has occurred seven times since its creation.

NASA explains why 30 June received an extra ‘leap second’

30 June 2015 Astronomy Now

Although we are unaware of it in our everyday lives, the Earth’s rotation is slowing down, so each mean solar day is about 0.002 seconds longer than the last. NASA explains why Tuesday, 30 June 2015, will have an extra second, or “leap” second, added.

Hubble views a nitrogen-rich planetary nebula

29 June 2015 Astronomy Now

NGC 6153 in the constellation Scorpius contains up to three times the amount of neon, argon, oxygen, carbon and chlorine to be found in our Solar System, but what really sets this planetary nebula apart is the quantity of nitrogen in its clouds.

Messier 87 has swallowed an entire galaxy in the last billion years

26 June 2015 Astronomy Now

M87 is a giant elliptical galaxy with a total mass more than a million million times that of the Sun that lies at the centre of the Virgo Cluster about 50 million light-years away. New observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope have revealed the full extent of the galaxy’s cannibalistic nature.

Monster black hole wakes up after 26 years

26 June 2015 Astronomy Now

On 15 June 2015, a long-time acquaintance of X-ray and gamma ray astronomers made its comeback to the cosmic stage: V404 Cygni, a system comprising a black hole and a star orbiting one another. It is located in our Milky Way galaxy, almost 8,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan.

Global Asteroid Day events and webcasts set for June 30

25 June 2015 Astronomy Now

The first official Asteroid Day is on 30 June with premiere events in London and San Francisco, but local organisers are making final preparations for more than 50 public events worldwide to increase education and awareness about asteroids and how to better detect them.

Red dwarf seen stripping atmosphere from Neptune-sized exoplanet

25 June 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an immense cloud of hydrogen dispersing from a warm, Neptune-sized planet orbiting a nearby star. It may offer clues as to how hot super-Earths — massive, hot versions of Earth — are born around other stars.