European Association for Astronomy Education

The EAAE is proud to announce the Vernal Equinox 2011 edition of EAAE Sunrise Project - A modern variation of the Eratosthenes Experiment. The project is a follow up of the 2010 edition and the deadline for registration is February 20^th, 2011. Project coordination is assured by Sakari Ekko, a long time member of the EAAE that has been very active in astronomical photography among other areas.

The idea of the Sunset Project is that the students use simple self-built cardboard pinhole cameras to make very long-exposure (several days) photographs of the sunrise or sunset around vernal equinox 15. – 25.3.2011. The Sun exposes its path on the image, which is sent to Sakari Ekko after the exposure for scanning. The processed images are shared and used to comprehend the latitude-dependent differences of the path of the Sun and to find the latitudes of the different locations. The images are added to the EAAE sunrise image collection for further pedagogical use of all interested teachers.

A pinhole camera image done during the 2010 edition of Sunrise project. Sunrise 17.3.-22.3.2010, Rovaniemi, Finland, 66.5ºN 25.7ºE. Very near the Arctic circle. Look at the scanned data sheet series S.

The students will develop their skills, among other things, in basic geometrical optics, the idea of camera, self-building, observing practice, Sun’s path in the sky and its effects on climate in different latitudes.

The EAAE Sunrise Project intends to promote the simultaneous development of astronomy, maths and photography skills among students.

Another pinhole camera image done during the 2010 edition of Sunrise project. Sunset, Cascais, Portugal 38º42’N 9º25’W. Photographer: Salvador M.Bruschy. Teacher: Leonor Cabral.

Project's website: http://eaae-astronomy.org/sunrise-project/

Source: ESA

Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. Ariane 5, Europe's heavy-lift workhorse, will be complemented by the Soyuz medium-class launcher and the new Vega small launcher. With Soyuz and Vega due to make their first flight from French Guiana in the second half of 2011, the new European launcher family will offer a full range of services to Europe.(read more)

Source: NASA-Solar Dynamic Observatory

Double event on the Sun. Credit: NASA/SDO

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) caught the action in freeze-frame splendor when the Sun popped off two events at once on Jan. 28, 2011. These simultaneous flares are usually called “sympathetic” flares.

Scientists that study the Sun have observed nearly simultaneous solar flares occurring in completely different areas of the Sun since long ago, but it was thought these near-synchronous explosions in the solar atmosphere were too far apart to be connected. Development of space observatories that allow pictures of the Sun viewed from different perspectives has allowed to connect these events to the lines of the Sun's magnetic field. (read source)

Source: NASA

Jupiter's atmosphere after an object hurtled into the atmosphere on July 19, 2009.
Image credit: NASA/IRTF

A hurtling asteroid about the size of the Titanic caused the scar that appeared in Jupiter's atmosphere on July 19, 2009, according to two papers published recently in the journal Icarus.

Data from three infrared telescopes enabled scientists to observe the warm atmospheric temperatures and unique chemical conditions associated with the impact debris. By piecing together signatures of the gases and dark debris produced by the impact shockwaves, an international team of scientists was able to deduce that the object was more likely a rocky asteroid than an icy comet. Among the teams were those led by Glenn Orton, an astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., and Leigh Fletcher, researcher at Oxford University, U.K., who started the work while he was a postdoctoral fellow at JPL.(read more)

Source: MRO HiRISE on You Tube

NASA's MRO teasm has released this fantastic video with images received from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Enjoy it!

Original movie: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/media/clips/HiRISE-26-Jan-2011-1080.mov

Source: NASA Science News

A Cassini image of vaporous, icy jets emerging from fissures on Enceladus.
Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI; Mosaic: Emily Lakdawalla

For years researchers have been debating whether Enceladus, a tiny moon floating just outside Saturn's rings, is home to a vast underground ocean. Is it wet--or not? Now, new evidence is tipping the scales. Not only does Enceladus likely have an ocean, that ocean is probably fizzy like a soft drink and could be friendly to microbial life.(read more)

Source: Hubble/ESA

Pushing the Hubble Space Telescope to the limit of its technical ability, an international collaboration of astronomers have found what is likely to be the most distant and ancient galaxy ever seen, whose light has taken 13.2 billion years to reach us (a redshift of around 10).(read more)

Source:Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics:

"First Light" for VIRUS-W: This image (from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey)
shows the galaxy NGC2903 and the field of view of the spectrograph.
Credit: SDSS

The new observing instrument VIRUS-W, built by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and the University Observatory Munich, saw "first light" on 10th November at the Harlan J. Smith Telescope of the McDonald observatory in Texas. Its first images of a spiral galaxy about 30 million light-years away where an impressive confirmation of the capabilities of the instrument, which can determine the motion of stars in near-by galaxies to a precision of a few kilometres per second. (read more)

Source: NASA

In a stunning reversal of fortune, NASA's NanoSail-D spacecraft has unfurled a gleaming sheet of space-age fabric 650 km above Earth, becoming the first-ever solar sail to circle our planet.(read more)

Source: ESA

Phobos image by Mars Express.
Credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Mars Express has returned images from the Phobos flyby of 9 January 2011. Mars Express passed Mars' largest moon at a distance of 100km.(read more)

Source NASA News Release 11-022

NASA's Stardust-NExT spacecraft is nearing a celestial date with comet Tempel 1 at approximately 11:37 p.m. EST, on Feb. 14.

The mission will allow scientists for the first time to look for changes on a comet's surface that occurred following an orbit around the Sun.

The Stardust-NExT, or New Exploration of Tempel, spacecraft will take high-resolution images during the encounter, and attempt to measure the composition, distribution, and flux of dust emitted into the coma, or material surrounding the comet's nucleus. Data from the mission will provide important new information on how Jupiter-family comets evolved and formed. (learn more)

Source: ESA News

First two Galileo IOV satellites. Image credit: ESA.

Galileo's first satellite is undergoing testing at ESA's technical centre in the Netherlands, checking its readiness to be launched into orbit. This marks a significant step for Europe's Galileo SATNAV constellation.(read more)

Souce: ESA News

ESA's Director General and President of the Romanian Space Agency sign the accession agreement.
Image credit: Romanian Space Agency

ESA PR 04-2011 Romania took a step further in its relations with ESA by signing the Accession Agreement to the ESA Convention on 20 January 2011, to become the 19th ESA Member State.(read more)

Original webpage: http://www.astromundus.eu/

The Institute of Astro and Particle Physics, University of Innsbruck (Coordinating University) Institute of Astronomy, the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade, Serbia Department of Physics, the Institute of Astrophysics, University of Göttingen, Germany Department of Astronomy, the University of Padua, Italy and the Department of Physics, University of Rome „Tor Vergata“, Italy have opened applications fo AstroMundus, an Erasmus Mundus Masters Course in Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Submissions are opened until January 31st. (read more)

Source:ESO Photo Release eso1103

Image credit: ESO and Igor Chekalin

ESO has released an ethereal-looking image of the Orion Nebula that 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 Chekalin (Russia), who participated in ESO’s Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography competition. Igor’s composition of the Orion Nebula was the seventh highest ranked entry in the competition, although another of Igor’s images was the eventual overall winner. (read more)

Source: NASA News

Credit: NASA

NASA and 14 international space agencies are challenging students to complete a nutrition and fitness program known as "Mission X: Train Like an Astronaut." Approximately 3,700 students from more than 25 different cities worldwide are participating in this six-week pilot project.(read more)

Source: ESA

BepiColombo's Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter in the Large Space Simulator.
Image credit: ESA/JAXA

Key components of the ESA-led Mercury mapper BepiColombo have been tested in a specially upgraded European space simulator. ESA's Large Space Simulator is now the most powerful in the world and the only facility capable of reproducing Mercury's hellish environment for a full-scale spacecraft.(read more)

Source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA)

In the outer reaches of our solar system lies a mysterious region far more remote and difficult to explore than the Australian outback. It remains the only part of our solar system not visited by spacecraft. Called the Kuiper Belt, this area beyond Neptune is home to the dwarf planets Pluto, Eris, Makemake, and Haumea. It also harbors thousands of smaller objects that form a second, icy asteroid belt (or more appropriately, comet belt). In this realm of perpetual twilight, the distant sun looks like just another bright star.

A new telescope has begun to virtually explore the solar system outback, and already is scoring discoveries. The Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) PS1 telescope has found ten Kuiper Belt residents. Based on their brightnesses, the newfound objects range in size from 180 to 300 miles (300 to 500 km).(read more)

Credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA)

Computer simulation of dark matter distribution in a
galaxy cluster formed in the universe with dark energy.
Image credit: Andrey Kravtsov.

Dark energy is a mysterious force that pervades all space, acting as a "push" to accelerate the Universe's expansion. Despite being 70 percent of the Universe, dark energy was only discovered in 1998 by two teams observing Type Ia supernovae. A Type 1a supernova is a cataclysmic explosion of a white dwarf star.

These supernovae are currently the best way to measure dark energy because they are visible across intergalactic space. Also, they can function as "standard candles" in distant galaxies since the intrinsic brightness is known.

Just as drivers estimate the distance to oncoming cars at night from the brightness of their headlights, measuring the apparent brightness of a supernova yields its distance (fainter is farther). Measuring distances tracks the effect of dark energy on the expansion of the Universe.

The best way of measuring dark energy just got better, thanks to a new study of Type Ia supernovae led by Ryan Foley of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.(read more)

Source: NASA

NASA is inviting student teams to design and build experiments the agency will fly into the stratosphere, a near-space environment, more than 100,000 feet above the Earth. (read more)