Astronomy Now – Page 225

Dawn observes Ceres’ northern hemisphere

10 May 2015 Astronomy Now

On May 8th, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft completed its mapping of the northern and southern hemisphere of dwarf planet Ceres in this orbit. The craft is now using its ion thruster to spiral down to the second mapping orbit. This image comes from May 4th.

News

Institute for Pale Blue Dots renamed in honour of Carl Sagan

10 May 2015 Astronomy Now

Carl Sagan’s highly inspirational 1980 TV series “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” launched many a career in astronomy. Now the Carl Sagan Institute: Pale Blue Dot and Beyond — a research institution devoted to the pursuit of Sagan’s challenge to explore other worlds, to learn if they, too, contain life — was unveiled at Cornell University on May 9th.

MESSENGER found evidence of Mercury’s ancient magnetic field

9 May 2015 Astronomy Now

About 4 billion years ago, Mercury’s magnetic field could have been much stronger than today, as indicated by low-altitude observations made by NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft that revealed evidence of magnetisation of the innermost planet’s ancient crustal rocks.

Lopsided star explosion holds the key to other supernova mysteries

8 May 2015 Astronomy Now

New observations of the remnant of supernova (SN) 1987A are confirming supercomputer model predictions made at Caltech that the deaths of stellar giants are lopsided affairs in which debris and the stars’ cores hurtle off in opposite directions.

Hubble finds giant halo around the Andromeda Galaxy

7 May 2015 Astronomy Now

Scientists using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the immense halo of gas enveloping the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest massive galactic neighbour, is about six times larger and 1,000 times more massive than previously measured.

Geochemical process on Saturn’s moon Enceladus linked to life’s origin

7 May 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers have revealed the pH of water spewing from geyser-like plumes on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Their findings are an important step toward determining whether life could exist, or could have previously existed, on the sixth planet’s sixth-largest moon.

Exo-asteroid debris shows how water reached Earth

7 May 2015 Astronomy Now

New research strongly suggests that water delivery via asteroids or comets is likely taking place in many other planetary systems, adding further support to the possibility water can be delivered to Earth-like planets via such bodies to create a suitable environment for the formation of life.

NASA’s LRO moves closer to Moon’s mysterious South Pole

6 May 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has completed a manoeuvre that lowered the spacecraft’s orbit to within 12 miles (20 kilometres) above areas near the Moon’s South Pole, the closest the spacecraft has ever been to the lunar surface.

Pearls of the Southern Skies

5 May 2015 Astronomy Now

Have you encountered the ‘War and Peace Nebula’, the ‘Furious Dancer Galaxy’ or the ‘Carina Smile Nebula’? These objects and a wealth of Southern Hemisphere deep-sky treasures feature in this well-written landscape-format coffee table book, says Nik Szymanek.

Astronomers set a new galaxy distance record

5 May 2015 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers has pushed back the cosmic frontier of galaxy exploration to a time when the universe was only 5 percent of its present age with the discovery of an exceptionally luminous galaxy more than 13 billion light-years from Earth. The galaxy existed so long ago, it appears to be only 100 million years old.