Astronomy Now – Page 235

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft becomes the first to orbit a dwarf planet

6 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet. Now, after a journey of 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometres) and 7.5 years, NASA/s Dawn spacecraft calls Ceres home.

The 2015 Arctic total solar eclipse

6 March 2015 Astronomy Now

On 20 March the shadow of the Moon will race across the North Atlantic Ocean at supersonic speed, narrowly skirting the south-eastern corner of Iceland and making landfall at only two places – the Faroe Islands and the Svalbard archipelago. A partial eclipse will be visible across the UK and Europe.

Mars lost an ocean’s worth of water

6 March 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA scientists have determined that a primitive ocean occupying almost half of Mars’ northern hemisphere once held more water than Earth’s Arctic Ocean and that the Red Planet has lost 87% of that water to space.

Distant supernova split four ways by gravitational lens

5 March 2015 Astronomy Now

An astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, has found a massive galaxy within the MACS J1149 galaxy cluster that is gravitationally bending and magnifying light to create four separate images of a distant supernova.

Why isn’t the universe as bright as it should be?

4 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers from MIT, Columbia University, and Michigan State University have developed a theory describing how clusters of galaxies may regulate star formation, explaining why galaxies don’t churn out as many stars as they should.

Wayward star cluster Kim 2 located far from home in the Galactic suburbs

4 March 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers conducting the Stromlo Milky Way Satellites Survey at the Australian National University discover a small star cluster that is about ten times more distant than the average globular in the halo of the Milky Way.

Dawn Ceres Arrival News Briefing

3 March 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA holds a news conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to preview the arrival of the Dawn probe at Dwarf Planet Ceres.

Wind-distorted wave creates huge Y-shaped features in Venusian clouds

3 March 2015 Astronomy Now

When observed in the ultraviolet, Venus’ atmosphere is covered by dark Y-shaped structures whose origin and evolution has been a mystery since their discovery more than half a century ago. Now astronomers in Spain and Portugal have described the mechanism that sustains this phenomenon.

NASA spacecraft nears historic arrival at dwarf planet Ceres

2 March 2015 Astronomy Now

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has returned new images captured on approach to entering orbit around Ceres on Friday, March 6th — the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet.

An old-looking, dusty galaxy in a young universe

2 March 2015 Astronomy Now

One of the most distant galaxies ever observed, A1689-zD1, has provided astronomers with the first detection of dust in such a remote star-forming system and tantalising evidence for the rapid evolution of galaxies after the Big Bang.