January 2011
97 posts
Watchitsfullofstars:
Onboard the Lunar Rover - 16 mm film sequence of driving the Lunar Rover.
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Japan's Kounotori2 Supply Ship Approaches the...
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit: Expedition 26 Crew, NASA
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Opportunity at Santa Maria Crater
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, NASA, JPL, Cornell; Image Processing: Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer
The small image on my blog really doesn’t do this image justice at all! If you want to see the full thing, click here
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NanoSail-D - Get Your Cameras Out!
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Illustration Credit: NASA
Two news stories on one post today. First off, this is a very nice looking artists impression of NASA’s recently launched solar sail that I found on apod, and secondly NASA and spaceweather.com have joined forces to bring all you budding astrophotographers a rather nice photography contest.
Apparently the solar sail will be visible...
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An Astronomer's Field of Dreams
An innovative new radio telescope array under construction in central New Mexico will eventually harness the power of more than 13,000 antennas and provide a fresh eye to the sky. The antennas, which resemble droopy ceiling fans, form the Long Wavelength Array, designed to survey the sky from horizon to horizon over a wide range of frequencies.
The University of New Mexico leads the project,...
NASA - Day of Remembrance →
Today is NASA’s day of remembrance. We honor the crews of Apollo 1, space shuttles Challenger and Columbia.
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Hidden Treasures of M78
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit: ESO / Igor Chekalin
For a bigger image and more information visit: http://apod.nasa.gov//apod/
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Runaway Star Plows Through Space
A massive star flung away from its former companion is plowing through space dust. The result is a brilliant bow shock, seen here as a yellow arc in a new image from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE.
The star, named Zeta Ophiuchi, is huge, with a mass of about 20 times that of our sun. In this image, in which infrared light has been translated into visible colors we...
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Acting and stuff...
I didn’t update the blog yesterday because I’ve been busy with some acting and didn’t get the time. If someone passes me some interesting news today I’ll be sure to post it.
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The Early Cosmos
NASA Picture of the Day
Stars are forming in Henize 2-10, a dwarf starburst galaxy located about 30 million light years from Earth, at a prodigious rate, giving the star clusters in this galaxy their blue appearance. This combination of a burst of star formation and a massive black hole is analogous to conditions in the early Universe. Since Henize 2-10 does not contain a significant bulge of...
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The Secret of Stellar Youth
Hubble Picture of the Week
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a clear view of the unusual globular cluster Palomar 1, whose youthful beauty is a puzzle for astronomers. This faint and sparse object is very different from the more familiar brilliant and very rich globular clusters and had to wait until 1954 for its discovery by George Abell on photographs from the Palomar Schmidt...
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NGC 6960 - The Veil Nebula
Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day
Image Credit: JoshuaH - Astronomy.FM
Coordinates: RA: 20h 45m 38.0s Dec: +30° 42′ 30″ Distance: ca 2000 ly
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Phobos' South Pole from Mars Express
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Phobos’ South Pole from Mars Express Credit: G. Neukum (FU Berlin) et al., Mars Express, DLR, ESA
For a bigger image and more information, visit: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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Busy, Busy, Busy...
It’s not been easy this past week fitting my astronomy in with the latest acting project that I’m working on (details of which will be posted soon). This means that the blog has been neglected very slightly over the last few days, and I’ve not been keeping up to date with all things space. I promise that things will be back to normal once I’ve completed the initial work on...
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Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Image Credit & Copyright: Sergi Verdugo Martínez
For more information and a larger image, visit: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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Swift Survey Finds 'Missing' Active Galaxies
An international team of scientists using data from NASA’s Swift satelliteconfirms the existence of a largely unseen population of black-hole-powered galaxies. Their X-ray emissions are so heavily absorbed that little more than a dozen are known. Yet astronomers say that despite the deeply dimmed X-rays, the sources may represent the tip of the iceberg, accounting for at least one-fifth of...
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NASA Mars Rover Will Check for Ingredients of Life
PASADENA, Calif. — Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of the largest instrument on NASA’s next Mars rover, watched through glass as clean-room workers installed it into the rover.
The specific work planned for this instrument on Mars requires more all-covering protective garb for these specialized workers than was needed for the building of NASA’s earlier Mars rovers.
...
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The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit and Copyright: ESA/Herschel/ PACS/SPIRE/J.Fritz(U.Gent) / XMM-Newton/EPIC/W.Pietsch(MPE)
I already posted this one a couple of weeks ago after it was shown on the BBC Stargazing Live programme. I’m actually quite surprised it’s taken this long for it to get on to the APOD image gallery. It is such a good image though that I thought it’d be...
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The Next Generation
In October 2010, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and White Sands Test Facility worked with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne to successfully complete a series of thruster tests that will aid in maneuvering and landing the next generation of robotic lunar landers that could be used to explore the moon’s surface and other airless celestial bodies. The test results will allow the...
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The Orion Nebula: Still Full of Surprises
This ethereal-looking image of the Orion Nebula was captured using the Wide Field Imager on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory, Chile. This nebula is much more than just a pretty face, offering astronomers a close-up view of a massive star-forming region to help advance our understanding of stellar birth and evolution. The data used for this image were selected by Igor...
We're Back !
abcstarstuff:
Our first StarStuff for 2011 is now out.
StarStuff this week: episode 512
Main stories
Thunderstorms sending antimatter and gamma rays in to space.
New places in space to hunt for amino acids the building blocks of life.
Lunar Core confirmed
Why is the Sun so hot ?
India rocket failure
Ariane 5 launch ssuccess
More delays for Space Shuttle Discovery
Skywatch for...
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Saturn Storm
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA; Color Composite: Jean-Luc Dauvergne
For a bigger image and more information, visit: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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Watch
Kepler-10b Coverage at AAS
As in past years, NASA research findings took front and center at the 2011 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held this year in Seattle. Among them: confirmation that NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has discovered its first rocky planet. Named Kepler-10b, it’s 1-point-4 times the size of Earth, and is the smallest planet ever discovered outside our...
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NASA Chat: The Moon's Earth-like Core
State-of-the-art seismological techniques applied to Apollo-era data suggest our moon has a core similar to Earth’s. Uncovering details about the lunar core is critical for developing accurate models of the moon’s formation. The data sheds light on the evolution of a lunar dynamo — a natural process by which our moon may have generated and maintained its own strong magnetic...
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WatchBehind the Webb
Show 9: Heavy Metal
The primary mirror segments of the Webb Telescope, along with its secondary and tertiary mirrors, are not made of glass like most mirrors on Earth. They are made of beryllium, a relatively rare metal that is only mined and processed in one place in the western hemisphere. Behind the Webb’s Mary Estacion travels to the West Desert of Utah to take a look...
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Quantity and Quality (or lack thereof)
It’s not escaped my notice that my blog has had a serious lack of decent content these last few days. The reason for this is I’m in the middle of work on several important projects and I’ve not had a lot of time to sit down at the PC to find science and space news and put it up on the blog. At the moment I’m working on some acting stuff and the blog is getting a little...
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North Col of Mount Everest
This astronaut photograph highlights the northern approach to Mount Everest from Tibet (China). Known as the northeast ridge route, climbers travel along the East Rongbuk Glacier (image lower left) to camp at the base of Changtse mountain. From this point at approximately 6,100 meters (20,000 feet) above sea level (asl), climbers ascend the North Col—a sharp-edged pass carved by glaciers, at...
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Islands of Stars in the River
Hubble Picture of The Week
The spiral galaxy NGC 1345 and its loose and ragged arms dominate this rich image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. It is a member of the Eridanus Galaxy Cluster — a group of about 70 galaxies that lies 85 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus (the River). This region of the night sky is well populated with bright galaxies, with the Fornax...
Just a quick reminder StarStuff is back this...
abcstarstuff:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/
Only you support can keep the show going so if you don’t subscribe already please consider it. And if you do subscribe please consider telling your friends.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/starstuff/
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Not a Blue Moon
Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day
Image Credit: Stefano De Rosa - Astronomy.FM
This is a really nice image of the full Moon over the city of Turin in Italy. It was taken using a Canon Eos 1000d; Exp: 10 sec; F/6.3; ISO 100; focal length: 27 mm.
For more information on the image, visit: http://astronomy.fm/aapod/
For more picture by the same photographer, visit: ofpink.wordpress.com
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Night and Day above Almost Planet Sounio
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit & Copyright: Chris Kotsiopoulos (GreekSky)
This is quite an interesting image that’s popped up on the APOD gallery this morning. I’m not going to waffle on about it here, as the proper description from the site is far better than anything I could say about it. So for the full description and a bigger image, visit: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/
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Lack of updates...
Apologies for the lack of updates over the last few days, I’ve been a little busy with other things. It’s been one of those rare occasions when my acting work interferes with my astronomy work. Things will be back to normal very shortly.
Pete
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Sun's Chromosphere and Protuberances
Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day
Image Credit: Andrea Curzi - Astronomy.FM AAPOD Gallery
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Globular Star Cluster 47 Tuc
Image Credit & Copyright: Dieter Willasch (Astro-Cabinet)
For a bigger image and more information visit: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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A Total Eclipse at the End of the World
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit & Copyright: Fred Bruenjes (moonglow.net)
For a larger image and a more information go to: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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Going Supernova
NASA Image of the Day
While searching the skies for black holes using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers discovered a giant supernova that was smothered in its own dust. In this artist’s rendering, an outer shell of gas and dust — which erupted from the star hundreds of years ago — obscures the supernova within. This event in a distant galaxy hints at one...
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Henize 2-10, a Dwarf Starburst Galaxy
The combined observations from multiple telescopes of Henize 2-10, a dwarf starburst galaxy located about 30 million light years from Earth, has provided astronomers with a detailed new look at how galaxy and black hole formation may have occured in the early Universe. This image shows optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in red, green and blue, X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray...
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Partner Galaxies Wildly Different In New WISE...
January 13, 2011
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer has captured a new view of two companion galaxies — a somewhat tranquil spiral beauty and its rambunctious partner blazing with smoky star formation. The unlikely pair, named Messier 81 and Messier 82, got to know each other a lot better during an encounter that occurred a few hundred million years...
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The Two-faced Whirlpool Galaxy
These images by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show off two dramatically different face-on views of the spiral galaxy M51, dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. The image at left, taken in visible light, highlights the attributes of a typical spiral galaxy, including graceful, curving arms, pink star-forming regions, and brilliant blue strands of star clusters. In the image at right, most of the...
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A Close View of NGC 3521
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Credit: Data - Hubble Legacy Archive, ESA, NASA Processing - Robert Gendler
NGC 3521 is a type SABbc spiral galaxy 30 to 50 million light-years away from Earth, located on the celestial equator in the head of Leo.
RA: 11h 5.8m-00° 2 Dec: -00° 2
For a bigger image and more information visit: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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In Deep Galaxy Surveys, Astronomers Get a Boost --...
Astronomers who survey galaxies in the distant universe are getting some unexpected help from gravity, according to a new study. In a presentation at the American Astronomical Society meeting this week and a related paper in the current issue of the journal Nature, researchers say that as many as 20 percent of the most distant galaxies currently detected appear brighter than they actually are,...
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A Valentine's Day Return to Comet Tempel 1
January 6, 2011 - PASADENA, Calif. — On February 14, 2011, NASA’s Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Tempel 1) mission will encounter Comet Tempel 1, providing a unique opportunity to measure the dust properties of two separate comets (Wild 2 and Tempel 1) with the same instrument for accurate data comparison. The encounter will also provide a comparison between two observations of a...
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Web-Streamed Event Will Cover Mars Science...
The National Air and Space Museum in Washington will present a discussion of Mars science Thursday, Jan. 13, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EST (7:30 to 9:30 a.m. PST) in a program to be televised and streamed online.
Mars experts from NASA, the European Space Agency and elsewhere will discuss the past and future of our understanding of the Red Planet. They will take questions from the audience....
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The Triangulum Galaxy
NASA Image of the Day
The Triangulum Galaxy is located nearly 3 million light years from Earth. And, in a study that pushes the limits of observations currently possible from Earth, a team of NASA and European scientists recorded the “fingerprints” of mystery molecules in the Triangulum Galaxy, as well as the Andromeda Galaxy. Figuring out exactly which molecules are leaving these...