News – Page 122 – Astronomy Now

Dawn sets course for higher orbit at Ceres

1 September 2016 Astronomy Now

After studying Ceres for more than eight months from its low-altitude science orbit, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will move higher up for different views of the dwarf planet.

Annular eclipse: ring of fire over Africa

1 September 2016 Ade Ashford

The annular solar eclipse of Thursday, 1 September 2016 occurs when the Sun is in Leo. Greatest eclipse occurs at 09:06:54 UT, which is just under five-and-a-half days before lunar apogee, which is the Moon’s furthest point from us in its orbit.

Probe hoisted aboard launcher to leave Earth next week on asteroid adventure

31 August 2016 Justin Ray

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft moved a step closer to starting a voyage to explore an uncharted world in our solar system — the mountain-sized Asteroid Bennu — by joining the booster rocket that will propel it from Earth next week.

Record-breaking galaxy cluster discovered

31 August 2016 Astronomy Now

A new record for the most distant galaxy cluster has been set using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. CL J1001+0220 is located about 11.1 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery of this object pushes back the formation time of galaxy clusters — the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity — by about 700 million years.

NASA space observatories reveal surprising monster black hole connection

30 August 2016 Astronomy Now

Astronomers studying distant galaxies powered by monster black holes have uncovered an unexpected link between two very different wavelengths of the light they emit, the mid-infrared and gamma rays.

Hunt for Planet 9 reveals extremely distant solar system objects

30 August 2016 Astronomy Now

In the race to discover a proposed ninth planet in our solar system, astronomers are conducting the largest, deepest survey for objects beyond Neptune and the Kuiper Belt. Nearly 10 percent of the sky has been explored to date using some of the largest and most advanced telescopes, revealing several never-before-seen objects at extreme distances from the Sun.

Juno gets its closest look at Jupiter

28 August 2016 Stephen Clark

Nearly two months after NASA’s Juno spacecraft slipped into orbit around Jupiter, the solar-powered probe made a passage 4,200 kilometres over the giant planet’s colourful banded clouds Saturday, the closest planned encounter during its 20-month exploration of the solar system’s largest world.

Juno to make closest approach to Jupiter on Saturday

26 August 2016 Astronomy Now

This Saturday NASA’s Juno spacecraft will get closer to the cloud tops of Jupiter than at any other time during its prime mission. At the moment of closest approach, Juno will be about 4,200 kilometres above Jupiter’s swirling clouds and traveling at 208,000 kilometres per hour.

Massive galaxy discovered made almost entirely of dark matter

26 August 2016 Astronomy Now

An international team of astronomers has discovered a massive galaxy that consists of 99.99 percent dark matter. Even though it is relatively nearby, astronomers had missed the galaxy, named Dragonfly 44, for decades because it is very dim. The galaxy lies about 300 million light-years away in the constellation Coma.

Take a walk around NASA’s asteroid sample probe

26 August 2016 Stephen Clark

We take a walk around NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft before it was loaded into the nose cone of the Atlas 5 rocket that will launch it on 8 September.