Astronomy Now – Page 232

Calm regions protect organic molecules around a supermassive black hole

27 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers using the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) have discovered zones where certain organic molecules somehow endure the intense X-rays and ultraviolet radiation near the supermassive black hole at the centre of galaxy Messier 77.

Are volcanoes responsible for twin bright spots on Ceres?

26 February 2015 Astronomy Now

As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft heads for its historic rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres next week, further mysteries unfold on the small world. Now seen in higher resolution, a volcano-like bright spot has a nearby companion.

Ancient quasar with massive black hole found at cosmic dawn

25 February 2015 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers has found a huge and ancient black hole which was powering the brightest object in the early universe. The black hole’s mass is 12 billion times that of the Sun, and was at the centre of a quasar that pumped out a million billion times the energy of our star.

Ceres looming large in Dawn’s camera

25 February 2015 Astronomy Now

These views of dwarf planet Ceres were taken on 19 February from a distance of about 46,000 kilometres (29,000 miles) by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. Dawn observed Ceres completing one full rotation, which lasted about nine hours to capture both sides of this minor body.

Rosetta closing in again on comet

25 February 2015 Astronomy Now

After a close up fly by of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko on Valentine’s Day, Rosetta looped further away from the comet than it has been since arriving there and returned some dramatic new images.

Curiosity rover takes ‘selfie’ at Mojave Site on Mount Sharp

25 February 2015 Astronomy Now

A new ‘selfie’ from Curiosity shows the NASA Mars rover at work at the “Mojave” site, where its drill collected the mission’s second taste of Mount Sharp.

Cubist Saturn

24 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Sometimes at Saturn you can see things almost as if from every angle at once, the way a Cubist might imagine things.

Hubble sees pulverised planet in Beta Pictoris debris disc?

23 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers have used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to take the most detailed picture to date of a large, edge-on, gas-and-dust disc encircling the 20-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris, revealing what may be the pulverisation of a Mars-size body in a giant collision.

MAVEN spacecraft’s first deep dip into Martian atmosphere

21 February 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA’s MAVEN mission has just completed the first of five deep-dip manoeuvres, lowering its closest approach to Mars to just 125 kilometres (78 miles), which will yield valuable data about the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet.

Space telescopes measure speed and shape of ultra-fast quasar winds

20 February 2015 Astronomy Now

Astronomers using NASA and ESA X-ray space telescopes discover that PDS 456, an extremely bright black hole known as a quasar more than 2 billion light-years away, sustains winds that carry more energy every second than is emitted by more than a trillion suns.