6 Sky Events This Week: Cosmic Scorpion, Planetary Triangle
Sky-watchers this week get a chance to go eye to eye with a cosmic scorpion and witness a magnificent meeting of three neighboring worlds in the evening skies.
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Posts in the past four weeks
Monday
May 20 2013
15:53 UTC
May 20 2013
15:53 UTC
Friday
May 17 2013
20:45 UTC
May 17 2013
20:45 UTC
NASA Announces Brightest Lunar Explosion Ever Recorded
A boulder-sized meteor slammed into the moon in March, igniting an explosion so bright that anyone looking up at the right moment might have spotted it, NASA announced Friday. NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office is reporting the discovery of the brightest impact seen on the moon in the eight year history of the monitoring program.…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Thursday
May 16 2013
15:43 UTC
May 16 2013
15:43 UTC
‘Pop Astronaut’ Hadfield Adjusting To Terra Firma
After returning to terra firma after five months aboard the orbiting International Space Station (ISS) with great fanfare, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield says he feels the drag of gravity and like he has aged quite a bit. “It really feels like the day after I played a hard game of rugby or hockey…I am…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Thursday
May 16 2013
10:30 UTC
May 16 2013
10:30 UTC
Nasa's Kepler telescope failure is not the end of searching for another Earth
... continueThe Kepler space telescope is in trouble. On Tuesday, during one of their regular twice-weekly communications slots, Nasa scientists found the telescope in "safe mode". An investigation has now revealed that a stabilising wheel has broken. This led the telescope to place itself in the protective, low-power mode. Without this wheel, the telescope cannot point precisely at its targets
Posted by Across the universe
Wednesday
May 15 2013
21:01 UTC
May 15 2013
21:01 UTC
Photo: Orion’s Hidden Dusty Ribbon Revealed
The Orion nebula Âis one of the most favorite spots for stargazers to explore in the heavens, but this week astronomers are releasing a stunning new look to this giant stellar nursery 1300 light years from Earth. A fiery cosmic ribbon glows with orange colors as grains of cold interstellar dust light up like…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Monday
May 13 2013
17:45 UTC
May 13 2013
17:45 UTC
5 Sky Events This Week: Three-Planet Huddle, Lunar Wall
The lunar wall comes into view, three planets huddle, and the moon joins the Leo constellation in this week's best sky events.
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Monday
May 13 2013
06:00 UTC
May 13 2013
06:00 UTC
Skylab's 40th anniversary reminds us of the danger from space debris Stuart Clark
... the future of manned space flight. Skylab was a historic mission. It was part of an initiative to re
Posted by Across the universe
Friday
May 10 2013
14:28 UTC
May 10 2013
14:28 UTC
Planet Debris Pollute Dead Stars
A pair of dead stars sitting in a star cluster about 150 light years from Earth appear to have their atmospheres polluted with debris from asteroids . Astronomers say this suggests that the basic ingredients for making Earth-like planets could be quite Âcommon in stellar nurseries across the cosmos. “We have identified chemical evidence…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Tuesday
May 07 2013
01:53 UTC
May 07 2013
01:53 UTC
Time-Lapse: Earth
If you couldn't tell, we love time-lapse videos… whether they're made of photos looking up at the sky from Earth or looking down at Earth from the sky! This latest assembly by photographer Bruce W. Berry takes us on a tour around the planet from orbit, created from images taken by astronauts aboard the International
Posted by Universe Today
Monday
May 06 2013
17:32 UTC
May 06 2013
17:32 UTC
5 Sky Events This Week: Return of Venus, Solar Eclipse
Straggler meteors, a solar eclipse, and the return of Venus are among the best sky events to watch this week.
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Friday
May 03 2013
21:57 UTC
May 03 2013
21:57 UTC
Look Into the Blood-Red Eye of Saturn’s Polar Hurricane
... from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, originally captured last year but recently released by NASA on April 29. Taking advantage of a new orbital trajectory that puts it high above Saturn's rings and poles, Cassini
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Friday
May 03 2013
17:12 UTC
May 03 2013
17:12 UTC
Retired Space Observatory’s Watery Legacy
After nearly four years of glorious service to science, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory mission has come to the end this week. Running out of helium coolant needed to chill its instruments down to near absolute zero means that it has closed its far-infrared eyes to the Universe for good. ÂAfter a…
Posted by Breaking Orbit
Monday
Apr 29 2013
04:01 UTC
Apr 29 2013
04:01 UTC
Proof that Meteors Hit Saturn’s Rings… a Lot
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided the first direct evidence of small meteoroids breaking into streams of rubble and crashing into Saturn's rings. These observations make Saturn's rings the only location besides Earth, the Moon and Jupiter where meteor impacts have been observed as they occur.ÂThe meteoroids at Saturn are estimated to range from about one-half
Posted by Lights in the Dark
Friday
Apr 26 2013
18:33 UTC
Apr 26 2013
18:33 UTC
What would it look like to watch Daphnis fly past?
Maybe something like THIS: What a great combination: DaphnisÂ(my favorite moon) and an artist's interpretation of what it might look like to see it whiz past as it travels around Saturn inside the Keeler Gap, sending up waves in the rings as it goes! The image is by Erik Svensson, who came across my recent
Posted by Lights in the Dark