News – Page 179 – Astronomy Now

Mountain-climbing Mars rover sends back low-angle selfie

23 August 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has recorded itself in another of its famous self-portraits as the mobile robot analyzes bore samples recently collected from a rock slab, the first use of the drill since a short circuit halted use of the device in February.

The Milky Way’s tumultuous heart revealed in X-rays

21 August 2015 Astronomy Now

A newly released image from the ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray satellite observatory gives us a unprecedented look at the intense processes taking place at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. The new study, which spans a thousand light-years, is a compilation of one and a half months of monitoring, revealing the powerful remnants of dead stars and their mighty action on the surrounding gas.

Historic 24-inch Clark refractor to reopen at Lowell Observatory

20 August 2015 Astronomy Now

Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona is famous as the place where dwarf planet Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, but it has an illustrious 121-year-old record of astronomical research and discovery. After a 20-month-long restoration project, Lowell’s historic 24-inch Alvan Clark refractor is poised to reopen for public observing sessions.

NASA to rely on Mars programme’s silent workhorse for years to come

20 August 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, aging and arthritic a decade after its launch, remains productive and is expected to be the primary pipeline for high-resolution maps of Mars for scientists and mission planners over the next decade.

Largest planets likely formed first from icy “planetary pebbles”

20 August 2015 Astronomy Now

Researchers at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Queen’s University in Canada have unravelled the mystery of how Jupiter and Saturn likely formed using computer simulations. The discovery, which changes our view of how all planets might have formed, also suggests that the gas giants in the solar system probably formed before the terrestrial planets.

Comet impacts may have led to life on Earth — and perhaps elsewhere

19 August 2015 Astronomy Now

Comet impacts on Earth are synonymous with great extinctions, but now research presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Prague shows that early comet collisions would have become a driving force to cause substantial synthesis of peptides — the first building blocks of life. This may have implications for the genesis of life on other worlds.

Dark energy survey finds eight more galactic neighbours

18 August 2015 Astronomy Now

Scientists on the Dark Energy Survey, using one of the world’s most powerful digital cameras, have discovered eight more faint celestial objects hovering near our Milky Way galaxy. Signs indicate that they, like the objects found by the same team earlier this year, are likely dwarf satellite galaxies — the smallest and closest known form of galaxies.

NASA’s LADEE spacecraft finds neon in lunar atmosphere

17 August 2015 Astronomy Now

The Moon’s thin atmosphere contains neon, a gas commonly used in electric signs on Earth because of its intense glow. While scientists have speculated on the presence of neon in the lunar atmosphere for decades, NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft has confirmed its existence for the first time.

Celestial firework marks nearest galaxy collision

16 August 2015 Astronomy Now

A spectacular galaxy collision has been discovered lurking behind the Milky Way, the closest such system ever found. “Kathryn’s Wheel” was found during a special wide field survey of the Southern Milky Way with the UK Schmidt Telescope in Australia. Such systems are very rare and arise from “bull’s-eye” collisions between two galaxies of similar mass.

Vagabond supernovae flung into space by binary black-hole slingshots?

16 August 2015 Astronomy Now

A new analysis of 13 supernovae — including archived data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope — is helping astronomers explain how some young stars exploded sooner than expected, hurling them to a lonely place far from their host galaxies. It’s a complicated mystery of double-star systems, merging galaxies, and twin black holes.