Space News With Lots of Pictures.

Lots of astronomy stories have been published in the past week, and I've been rather busy trying to keep track of them all. The best things about these stories, and about astronomy in general, are the pictures. They can tell so much and most of them look beautiful. So, I've rounded up a bunch of the amazing pictures published in the past week or so, and will probably give a short paragraph about them:

Lets start with the star that changed the Universe. The Hubble telescope viewed this variable star that actually resides in another galaxy, our neighbor, Andromeda. Before this star was discovered, the fuzzy patches of galaxies were just called nebula, and thought to be just gas inside our own galaxy. Edwin Hubble (the Hubble telescopes namesake) changed all that in 1923, discovering that these nebula were indeed other galaxies, and used this variable star to determine that they were millions of light years away. You can read the historic story here.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

NASA released these amazing raw images taken by Cassini of Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus. These images, haven't been processed or colorized yet, but absolutely blow my mind. A couple of the highlights can be seen here, while the full set is over here.

Image Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA/Andrew Levan

Probably the most distant object ever seen, for now. This is a gamma ray burst, known as GRB 090429B. I made a post about GRBs awhile ago. If you want to know more about the science behind how this sort of stuff is determined, Bad Astronomy has got you covered. And here is the original story with a link to the paper.

WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, was turned off awhile ago, but the work still goes on. NASA released a gallery of nine spiral galaxy images taken by WISE. For more info on each galaxy, check out the NASA release. (There is also a really huge version of the image, which is drool inducing.)

Docked Endeavour at ISS through a fish-eye lens. Image Credit: NASA

Photos from the last space shuttle spacewalk, it also marked the formal completion of the U.S. segment of the International Space Station. You can go through the entire photo set here.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Toledo

This graphic illustrates a stellar fountain of crystal rain, beginning with a Spitzer picture of the star in question, and ending with an artist's concept of what the crystal "rain" might look like. The full article is here.

Of course, there are a couple of stories out there that just really don't have good pictures to go with them. A few of them I suggest checking out are: New arm discovered in outer edge of the Milky Way Galaxy; The Moon is wetter then we thought; For Mars, rapid formation stunted growth; and Info on OSIRIS-REx, NASAs new science mission to asteroid launching in 2016. Have a good Memorial Day weekend to everyone in the U.S. Everyone else, just have a good weekend.

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Posted in Astronomy,Astrophotography,Gamma Ray Bursts,Hubble,Moons,Saturn,Space News,Space Shuttle,Titan,WISE 21 comments

Astronomy News Update 4/20/11

There are a couple of astronomy news things this week that I wanted to share. It's all pretty exciting stuff.

But first, let me remind you to vote on the poll in the sidebar. Every Tuesday I give a little lesson in astronomy and I let you, the readers, decide on what I'm gonna write about. There is always room for suggestions, so please make them in any comment thread. A history of previous Astro-Lessons can be found under the Astronomy Topics heading. (Still working on getting that all updated.)

On to the News:

• Endeavour's last flight scheduled for April 29 

NASA announced today that the Space Shuttle Endeavour's last flight will be on Friday, April 29, at 15:47 EST. A number of notable things will happen this flight: the Shuttle will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 to the International Space Station; there will also be the last set of Shuttle astronaut spacewalks (4 in total); and the Commander is Mark Kelly, husband of Congresswoman Giffords, who got shot earlier this year but plans to attend the launch. More at NASA's Shuttle page and watch it live on NASA TV

• Titan might be hiding a liquid water ocean

I already told you that Titan was one of the Top Moons of the Solar System, and that it had an entire hydrological cycle based on methane with a thick atmosphere, but now the moon is getting even more complex! According to the math, the motions of Titan's orbit and rotation indicate that their is a HUGE subsurface ocean.

There is speculation that this ocean could be yet more methane, but the recent modeling supports a water (H2O) ocean, making it the best fitting hypothesis so far. It isn't a final blow yet though, the only way to know for sure is to get there and start digging. Another explanation could be an interaction with a large comet or asteroid.

• Pluto has a large poisonous atmosphere 

Ah, Pluto, even though not a planet anymore, the dwarf is still a favorite for astronomers to study, being the most accessible Kuiper Belt Object. Using the 15-meter James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii, a British-based team found a strong signal of poisonous carbon monoxide gas in Pluto's atmosphere. They also discovered that rather than the thought height of 60 miles (~1,000 km), Pluto's atmosphere extends at least 1,860 miles (3,000 km), or a quarter of the way to it's largest moon Charon.

The gas would be extremely cold at about -364 F (-220 C), and the atmosphere is likely generated by solar heating. When Pluto is closer to the Sun, parts of the surface would evaporate into a gaseous atmosphere and freeze again as Pluto moved away. Pluto's last closest pass was in 1989 and it takes 248 years to complete an orbit. More on this discovery can be read on Space.com.

• Hubble is turning 21!

If the Hubble Space Telescope was a human in the U.S., he'd be getting excited about celebrating with a couple cold ones on April 24. Unfortunately, it can't, so I propose having a beer in honor of its long and wonderful service, and wishing it many more great years. A large part of astronomy in today's popular culture is due to this scope, and the name Hubble is known around the world. On April 24, 1990, the Space Shuttle Discovery roared the HST into orbit and astronomy hasn't been the same since. In honor of this, NASA has released a new image of interacting galaxies called Arp 273, taken on 17 December 2010, with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). You can read more about the image (and find a higher resolution) at the Hubble website or Bad Astronomy.

Of course there are lots of other good stories out there, these are just a couple of the great ones. Other stories to check out: Sunspots spawn gigantic solar flare (with a cool video); Black forests could exist on a world with two suns; and Electromagnetic currents link Enceladus and Saturn.

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Posted in Astronomy,Hubble,News,Pluto,Space Shuttle,Titan 20 comments

Top 12 Moons of The Solar System (Part 2)

Part deuce of the top 12 moons. Part one here, in case you missed it. As you learned in the first post, there is a huge amount of diversity among the moons in our solar system. There are big ones, there are small ones, there are wet ones, there are dry ones, ones made out of rock, ones made out of ice.

They are pretty crazy, and for the most part, each moon has its own personality. Just like say, you were sitting in a lecture hall with 170 students. They would all be students, but different in their own ways. This list is just a fraction of all these moons, and volumes could be, and have been, written about each one of them. These are just some of my favorites, just like a professor might have his favorite student. Or a blogger might have his favorite followers.

So without further bantering, lets finish my list:

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Posted in Charon,Europa,Ganymede,Io,Moon,Moons,Titan 15 comments