European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA/Flickr

Images of the International Space Station and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles, taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking on May 24, 2011. The pictures are the first taken of a shuttle docked to the International Space Station from the perspective of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Onboard the Soyuz were Russian cosmonaut and Expedition 27 commander Dmitry Kondratyev; ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli; and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman. Coleman and Nespoli were both flight engineers. The three landed in Kazakhstan later that day, completing 159 days in space.(view images)

Source: ESO Organisation Release eso1119

VST image of the star-forming region Messier 17.
Image credit: ESO/INAF-VST/OmegaCAM.
Acknowledgement: OmegaCen/Astro-WISE/Kapteyn Institute.

The VLT Survey Telescope (VST), the latest addition to ESO’s Paranal Observatory, has made its first release of impressive images of the southern sky. The VST is a state-of-the-art 2.6-metre telescope, with the huge 268-megapixel camera OmegaCAM at its heart, which is designed to map the sky both quickly and with very fine image quality. It is a visible-light telescope that perfectly complements ESO’s VISTA infrared survey telescope. New images of the Omega Nebula and the globular cluster Omega Centauri demonstrate the VST’s power. (read more)

Source: NASA Science

A new observatory is about to leave Earth to map a powerful compound of global importance: Common everyday sea salt. (read more)

Source: Space Daily

An unusual solar flare observed by a NASA space observatory on Tuesday could cause some disruptions to satellite communications and power on Earth over the next day or so, officials said.

The potent blast from the Sun unleashed a firestorm of radiation on a level not witnessed since 2006, and will likely lead to moderate geomagnetic storm activity by Wednesday. (read more)

Source: ESA

South polar region of Mars. image credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).

ESA’s Mars Express celebrates eight years in space with a new view of ice in the southern polar region of Mars. The poles are closely linked to the planet’s climate and constantly change with the seasons. Their study is an important scientific objective of the mission. (read more)