News – Page 172 – Astronomy Now

Launch of European Mars mission delayed two months

20 September 2015 Stephen Clark

Officials expect to delay next year’s launch of a European Mars orbiter and lander about two months — from January to March — to remove faulty pressure transducers from the landing craft’s braking system, the European Space Agency announced Friday.

The surface of Rosetta’s comet is changing

20 September 2015 Stephen Clark

Views from Europe’s Rosetta comet orbiter show mysterious markings appearing on the nucleus of Comet 67P in recent months, with new surface features forming within a matter of weeks, and scientists are digging into the complex causes of the cometary erosion.

Mysterious energy bursts provide new way to chart the cosmos in 3-D

20 September 2015 Astronomy Now

In deep space, some unknown astrophysical phenomenon is causing mysterious bursts of energy that appear as short flashes of radio waves. In a University of British Columbia study, researchers propose a new way to calculate cosmological distances using these fast radio bursts. The method allows researchers to position distant galaxies in three dimensions and map out the cosmos.

Historic Brashear telescope saved for restoration in NZ Dark Sky Reserve

19 September 2015 Ade Ashford

A 125-year-old, 18-inch (46-cm) aperture Brashear refracting telescope with an illustrious history that has languished in storage for half a century has found a new Antipodean home. It marks the first step on the road to restoring the 7-ton, 8-metre-long instrument to its former glory, destined to become the centrepiece of a public outreach Astronomy Centre near the shore of Lake Tekapo in the heart of New Zealand’s South Island.

‘Hot Jupiter’ exoplanets may have formed very rapidly

18 September 2015 Astronomy Now

Twenty years after they were first discovered, ‘hot Jupiters’ — gas giant planets that orbit very close to their star — are still enigmatic objects. Using the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, an international team of astrophysicists has shown that such bodies may only take several million years to migrate close to their newly formed star.

Haunting sunset vista shows foggy hazes on Pluto

17 September 2015 Stephen Clark

A crescent Pluto stars in pictures captured just after NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s July flyby of the distant dwarf planet, exposing eerie backlit fog banks and glacial flows that scientists say hint at an Earth-like weather cycle.

Watching an exoplanet in motion around a distant star

17 September 2015 Astronomy Now

A team of astronomers, using the Gemini Planet Imager (GPI) on the Gemini South telescope in Chile, has given us our best view yet of an exoplanet moving in its orbit around a distant star. A series of images captured between November 2013 and April 2015 shows the exoplanet β Pictoris b as it moves through 1½ years of its 22-year orbital period.

Merging black holes responsible for mysterious flickering quasar

16 September 2015 Astronomy Now

Columbia University astronomers provide additional evidence that a pair of closely orbiting black holes deep in the Virgo constellation is causing the rhythmic flashes of light coming from quasar PG 1302-102. Separated by a mere light-week, the black holes are spiralling toward a collision so powerful it will send a burst of gravitational waves surging through the fabric of space-time.

Dust discs of nearby red dwarfs could reveal planetary secrets

16 September 2015 Astronomy Now

An accidental find of a collection of young red dwarf stars close to our solar system could give us a rare glimpse of slow-motion planet formation. Astronomers from The Australian National University and University of New South Wales, Canberra found large discs of dust around two of the stars, telltale signs of planets in the process of forming.

Cassini finds global ocean under icy crust of Saturn’s moon Enceladus

15 September 2015 Astronomy Now

A global ocean lies beneath the icy crust of Saturn’s geologically active moon Enceladus, according to new research using data from NASA’s Cassini mission. Researchers found the magnitude of the moon’s very slight wobble, as it orbits Saturn, can only be accounted for if its outer ice shell is not frozen solid to its interior, meaning a global ocean must be present.