Astronomy News Feeds
Astronomy Picture of the Day: Stickney Crater
November 7, 2009
Stickney Crater Stickney Crater, the largest crater on the martian moon Phobos, is named for Chloe Angeline Stickney Hall, mathematician and wife of astronomer Asaph Hall. Asaph Hall discovered both the Red Planet's moons in 1877. Over...
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Universe Today (Top 5 items)
- One Strange Mars Rock (Sat Nov 7 10:37 am)
Opportunity has come upon another big rock on Mars. But what is it? Another meteorite? A big clump of ejecta from an old impact? There's lots of other debris scattered around this area as well. The rock has been named "Marquette Island,"... - Early Galaxy Pinpoints Reionization Era (Fri Nov 6 1:17 pm)
Astronomers looking to pinpoint when the reionozation of the Universe took place have found some of the earliest galaxies about 800 million years after the Big Bang. 22 early galaxies were found using a method that looks for far-away redshifting... - Space Junk May Force Crew from ISS (Fri Nov 6 10:54 am)
Update #2, 5:30 pm: NASA has now said that after further analysis, the space debris they have been tracking no longer poses any concern or threat to the ISS. Everyone can rest easy tonight! The piece of debris was only 5 cm long, and will... - Podcast: Planet X (Fri Nov 6 10:20 am)
Astronomers have been searching for the mysterious Planet X for hundreds of years. It was the search for a theoretical planet beyond Uranus that turned up Neptune, and then again for Pluto. And even now there are some astronomers who think... - Podcast: Pulsars (Fri Nov 6 10:17 am)
Imagine an object with the mass of the Sun, crushed down to the size of Manhattan. Now set that object spinning hundreds of times a second, blasting out powerful beams of radiation like a lighthouse. That's a pulsar, one of the most exotic...
Space.com News (Top 5 items)
- Moon's Friends Say 'No' to Future Lunar Crashes (Fri Nov 6 9:06 pm)
When a NASA spacecraft rammed into the moon in October, it tossed up a hard-to-see plume of lunar material and stirred up a cloud of public anxiety. - New Type of Supernova Discovered (Fri Nov 6 9:06 pm)
New type of supernova featuring helium explosion on a white dwarf is discovered. - Stars May be Cosmic Road Signs to Intelligent Aliens (Fri Nov 6 9:06 pm)
The most probable place to find intelligent life in the galaxy is around stars very similar to our sun, a new study has found. - Space Junk Buzzes Station as Astronauts Sleep (Fri Nov 6 9:06 pm)
A small chunk of space trash headed for an uncomfortably close pass by the International Space Station late Friday, but not close enough to force the astronauts aboard to take shelter in their Russian lifeboats. - Seattle Team Wins $900,000 in Space Elevator Contest (Fri Nov 6 9:06 pm)
A Seattle-based team has won $900,000 in this year's Space Elevator Games, a NASA-sponsored contest to build machines powered by laser beams that can climb a cable in the sky.
EurekaAlert Space News (Top 5 items)
- 'Dropouts' pinpoint earliest galaxies (Thu Nov 5 11:00 pm)
(Carnegie Institution) Astronomers, conducting the broadest survey to date of galaxies from about 800 million years after the Big Bang, have found 22 early galaxies and confirmed the age of one by its characteristic hydrogen signature at 787... - AGU journal highlights -- Nov. 5, 2009 (Wed Nov 4 11:00 pm)
(American Geophysical Union) Featured in this release are research papers on the following topics: "Antarctica warming a regional, not local, trend"; "New model factors storms into shoreline loss"; "Study agrees reservoir contributed to Wenchuan... - DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory names 6 scientists as 2009 Fellows (Wed Nov 4 11:00 pm)
(DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory) Antoinette "Toni" Taylor, Stephen Becker, Joachim Birn, Lowell Brown, Patrick Colestock and Samuel "Tom" Picraux have been designated 2009 Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows in recognition of sustained,... - Tackling new Arctic challenges from space (Wed Nov 4 11:00 pm)
(European Space Agency) International scientists, researchers and decision makers met at the Space and the Arctic workshop to identify the needs and challenges of working and living in the rapidly changing Arctic and to explore how space-based... - German high-school students involved in an astronomical research project (Wed Nov 4 11:00 pm)
(Astronomy & Astrophysics) Astronomy & Astrophysics publishes the results of an unusual research project, by a team involving German high-school students. They present an accurate, long-term ephemeris of the cataclysmic variable EK Ursae Majoris,...
Physorg.com Space and Earth Science News (Top 5 items)
- Russian rocket to launch from French Guiana in 2010 (Sat Nov 7 8:56 am)
A Russian rocket will next year for the first time blast off from a European launch pad in South America, officials said Saturday, as the first rockets headed for the site on board a ship. - Seattle team wins $900,000 in Space Elevator Games (Sat Nov 7 8:45 am)
(AP) -- A Seattle team has collected a $900,000 prize in a NASA-backed competition to develop the concept of an elevator to space - an idea spurred by science fiction novels. - Station Prepares For New Spacecraft, Monitors Debris (Fri Nov 6 1:40 pm)
The station crew prepared Friday for the arrival of the Russian Mini-Research Module 2 (MRM2) which is scheduled for launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan on Nov. 10. The MRM2 will arrive at the station on Nov. 12 docking to the top... - Rosetta approach on schedule (Fri Nov 6 1:10 pm)
(PhysOrg.com) -- After the trajectory correction manoeuvre on 22 October, Rosetta has lined up on a near-perfect Earth approach path. The manoeuvre was so precise that mission controllers decided not to use the additional manoeuvre slot that... - Hylas payload shipped to India (Fri Nov 6 12:50 pm)
The Astrophysics Spectator (Top 5 items)
- Neutrinos and SN 1987A (Tue Oct 6 7:00 pm)
A core-collapse supernova releases most of its energy as neutrinos. This theoretical conclusion is confirmed by a single event, the supernova seen in the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987. Large neutrino detectors buried deep underground... - Core-Collapse Supernovae (Wed Sep 9 7:00 pm)
The most energetic supernovae are powered by gravitational potential energy. Once a massive star consumes all of its thermonuclear fuel, it is unable to support itself against its own gravity. The core of such a star collapses to... - Nuclear Reactions in Thermonuclear Supernovae (Tue Jun 2 7:00 pm)
Carbon and oxygen are converted into nickel in a white dwarf through a complex network of reactions. The incremental changes tend to follow the series of atomic nuclei that are multiples in composition of the helium nucleus. ... - Thermonuclear Supernovae (Fri May 1 7:00 pm)
Most type Ia supernovae are attributed to the thermonuclear explosion of white dwarfs. A star becomes a white dwarf before it has completely consumed its thermonuclear fuel. The amount of thermonuclear energy locked within a... - Energetics of Thermonuclear Supernovae (Fri May 1 7:00 pm)
The thermonuclear energy locked inside a white dwarf is sufficient to blow the star apart. In particular, white dwarfs composed of carbon and oxygen, which are more common and contain more thermonuclear energy than those composed...