European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: NASA

Titan and Saturn. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute .

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, looks small here, pictured to the right of the gas giant in this Cassini spacecraft view.

Titan (3,200 miles, or 5,150 kilometers across) is in the upper right. Saturn's rings appear across the top of the image, and they cast a series of shadows onto the planet across the middle of the image.

The moon Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across) appears as a tiny white speck above the rings in the far upper right of the image. The shadow cast by Prometheus can be seen as a small black speck on the planet on the far left of the image, between the shadows cast by the main rings and the thin F ring. The shadow of the moon Pandora also can be seen on the planet south of the shadows of all the rings, below the center of the image towards the right side of the planet. Pandora is not shown here.

This view looks toward the southern, unilluminated side of the rings from about 1 degree below the ringplane.

The image was taken with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Jan. 5, 2012 using a spectral filter sensitive to wavelengths of near-infrared light centered at 752 nanometers. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 426,000 miles (685,000 kilometers) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 20 degrees. Image scale is 23 miles (37 kilometers) per pixel on Saturn. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

Source: ESA

Kerguelen ground station.
Image credits:ESA/Fermin Alvarez Lopez.

A worldwide chain of Galileo ground stations on some of the remotest sites on Earth is nearing completion ahead of this year’s launch of two more satellites.(read more)

The Polish branch of European Association for Astronomy Education is inviting all members of EAAE to the second POLISH EAAE SUMMER SCHOOL that will be organize between July 2nd and July 6th, 2012. The organisation  offers free accomodation in bungalows belonging to Youth Astronomical Observatory (MOA) in Niepolomice. It is a small nice town 15 km from Cracow - the main tourist target in Poland.

The main aim of the meeting is to create possibility to exchange ideas and experiences concernig astronomy education at all school levels. We will have free access to small telescopes and planetarium in MOA. Workshop on astrophotography is also planned.

An official confirmation will be given to all participants.

Some lectures and workshops will be on English. During the activities on Polish you will be free to see very interesting places in Cracow and nearby (for example the university building Copernicus studied in).

The bungalows are not specially comfortable (although with shower and small kitchen) but there are good hotels in Niepolomice and you are free to book a room at your own expense.

If you would like to join this summer school just send an email to

 obserwatorium(małpa)wp.pl specifying:

1. your name and country
2. your workplace
3. date of your planned arrival and departure
4. preferred accomodation (free bungalows or hotel on your own espence)
5. your proposals and expectations concernig the meeting.

Learn more about this Summer School at http://lo2.nazwa.pl/obserwatorium/summer_school2012.html

Source: NASA News

New images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft show the moon's crust is being stretched, forming minute valleys in a few small areas on the lunar surface. Scientists propose this geologic activity occurred less than 50 million years ago, which is considered recent compared to the moon's age of more than 4.5 billion years. (read more)

Source: NASA Space Casts

En route to the Red Planet, Mars rover Curiosity has experienced the strongest solar radiation storm since 2005. Researchers say this is part of Curiosity's job as a 'stunt double' for human astronauts.

FULL STORY: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/24feb_stuntdouble/

Source: NASA Chandra

Artist impression of stellar-mass black hole IGR J17091.
Image credits: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole. This result has important implications for understanding how this type of black hole behaves.

The record-breaking wind is moving about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole.

Stellar-mass black holes are born when extremely massive stars collapse. They typically weigh between five and 10 times the mass of the sun. The stellar-mass black hole powering this super wind is known as IGR J17091-3624, or IGR J17091 for short. (read more)

Source: NASA Spitzer

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has detected little spheres of
carbon, called buckyballs, in the Small Magellanic Cloud.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres had been found only in gas form.

Formally named buckminsterfullerene, buckyballs are named after their resemblance to the late architect Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes. They are made up of 60 carbon molecules arranged into a hollow sphere, like a soccer ball. Their unusual structure makes them ideal candidates for electrical and chemical applications on Earth, including superconducting materials, medicines, water purification and armor.

In the latest discovery, scientists using Spitzer detected tiny specks of matter, or particles, consisting of stacked  buckyballs. They found them around a pair of stars called "XX Ophiuchi," 6,500 light-years from Earth. (read more)

Source:ESA/Hubble Science Release heic1204

Artist's impression of Exoplanet GJ 1214b.
Image credits:NASA, ESA, and D. Aguilar.

Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have come up with a new class of planet, a waterworld enshrouded by a thick, steamy atmosphere. It’s smaller than Uranus but larger than Earth. (read more)

Summer School Alpbach has been working for 35 years providing in-depth teaching on different topics of space science & technology, featuring lectures and concentrated working sessions on mission studies in self-organised working groups. 60 young highly qualified European science and engineering students converge annually for stimulating 10 days of work in the Austrian Alps.

A very interesting Summer School for Post-grad and PhD students.

Learn more about the Summer School Alpbach 2012 at http://www.summerschoolalpbach.at/.

Source: ESA

The Swarm constellation.
Image credits: ESA/AOES Medialab.

The three satellites that make up ESA’s Swarm magnetic field mission were presented to the media today. Following a demanding testing programme, the satellites were displayed in the cleanroom before they are shipped to Russia for their July launch. (read more)

Source: PhysOrg

Physicists in Italy have discovered the first evidence of a rare nucleus that doesn’t exist in nature and lives for just 10-10 seconds before decaying. It’s a type of hypernucleus that, like all nuclei, contains an assortment of neutrons and protons. But unlike ordinary nuclei, hypernuclei also contain at least one hyperon, a particle that consists of three quarks, including at least one strange quark. Hypernuclei are thought to form the core of strange matter that may exist in distant parts of the universe, and could also allow physicists to probe the inside of the nucleus. (read more)

The Fizeau exchange visitors program in optical interferometry funds (travel and accommodation) visits of researchers to an institute of his/her choice (within the European Community) to perform collaborative work and training on one of the active topics of the European Interferometry Initiative. The visits will typically last for one month, and strengthen the network of astronomers engaged in technical, scientific and training work on optical/infrared interferometry. The program is open for all levels of astronomers (Ph.D. students to tenured staff). Applicants are strongly encouraged to seek also partial support from their home or host institutions.

The deadline for applications is the 15th of March for visits starting 1st of May.

Note that an early next call may be issued in June for visits starting in July.

Further informations and application forms can be found at

www.european-interferometry.eu

The program is funded by OPTICON/FP7.

Source:Cassini Solstice Mission

Image credit: NASA/JPL

Tomorrow Cassini goes back to Titan to make the T-82 flyby close to Titan's south pole.

During this close Titan flyby, the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) performs a wide variety of observations, including limb sounding, and mapping of surface and atmospheric temperatures. Far-infrared limb sounding near closest approach reaches the most northerly latitude of the Solstice Mission. (75 degrees North) until 2015, providing insights into the transition of the northern polar circulation from spring to summer, and includes a search for possible condensates. The Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) rides-along to detect clouds to monitor climatic changes after the equinox.T-82 is a dusk sector equatorial flyby across Titan's magnetic tail. Similar in geometry, but at a lower altitude (2,363 miles, or 3,803 kilometers) than T-78, Cassini will be able to provide a better characterization of the magnetotail by providing samples at different radial distances from the moon at a fixed local time.

Source: NASA Science Casts

The brightest planets in the night sky are aligning for a must-see show in late February and March 2012. You can start looking tonight.

ESA is requesting scientists to respond to the “Announcement of Opportunity for an Independent Legacy Scientist in the Euclid Science Team".

Euclid is a high-precision survey mission designed to answer fundamental questions on dark energy and dark matter.

In October 2011, Euclid was selected by the Science Programme Committee as the second M-class mission in the Cosmic Vision plan 2015-2025, for a launch in the end of 2019. The official solicitation is available in the attached letter.

The details regarding the Euclid mission and the Announcement of Opportunity are provided at:

http://sci.esa.int/euclid-ils-2012

The deadline for submission of proposals is 12 April 2012, 12:00 CET.

Source: ESA/Hubble Science Release heic1203

Star cluster surrounds wayward black hole in cannibal galaxy ESO 243-49.
Image credits: NASA, ESA, and S. Farrell (University of Sydney, Australia and University of Leicester, UK).

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have found a cluster of young blue stars surrounding a mid-sized black hole called HLX-1. The discovery suggests that the black hole formed in the core of a now-disintegrated dwarf galaxy. The findings have important implications for understanding the evolution of supermassive black holes and galaxies. (read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1209

APEX image of a star-forming filament in Taurus.
Image credits: ESO/APEX (MPIfR/ESO/OSO)/A. Hacar et al./Digitized Sky Survey 2.
Acknowledgment: Davide De Martin.

A new image from the APEX (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment) telescope in Chile shows a sinuous filament of cosmic dust more than ten light-years long. In it, newborn stars are hidden, and dense clouds of gas are on the verge of collapsing to form yet more stars. It is one of the regions of star formation closest to us. The cosmic dust grains are so cold that observations at wavelengths of around one millimetre, such as these made with the LABOCA camera on APEX, are needed to detect their faint glow.(read more)

Odysseus is a European project, co-founded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme, in the Space area for ” Studies and events in support of European Space Policy”.

Space exploration advances our knowledge, allows us to understand and protect our planet better and provides the opportunity to discover the answers to fundamental questions about the history of Earth, the origin of life, the Solar System and the Universe. In other words space exploration is pushing forward the limits of our knowledge and is engaging and inspiring the public in the “New Frontier”. The Odysseus project aims exactly at engaging and inspiring the European youth in the “New Frontier”, by implementing a pan-European Scientific Contest for young people on Space exploration themes, combining creativity, intelligence and innovation.

The project, which started on 1st November 2011 and will last for 18 months, aspires to integrate ongoing educational activities on science in a pan-European perspective, providing the opportunity for young pupils to compete with their peers from different European countries. This action is also enhancing the concept of multinational cooperation, an element necessary in space exploration field. All participants have to be between 14 to 18 years old and in order to submit their entry will have to create a collaborative team, which would design and demonstrate an innovative project in one of the contest’s themes.

The total budget of Odysseus project is € 335,000, with approximately € 300,000 financing by the European Commission.

Odysseus webpage: http://www.odysseus-contest.eu/?page_id=196

Source: ESA

This all-sky distribution of carbon monoxide (CO) as seen by Planck (blue).
Image credits: ESA/Planck Collaboration; T. Dame et al., 2001.

ESA’s Planck mission has revealed that our Galaxy contains previously undiscovered islands of cold gas and a mysterious haze of microwaves. These results give scientists new treasure to mine and take them closer to revealing the blueprint of cosmic structure. (read more)

Source: ESA

Working on PW-Sat integration. Credits: Andrzej Kotarba.

The first satellites entirely designed and built by Hungary, Poland, Romania are now orbiting Earth after today’s successful maiden flight of ESA's small Vega launcher.(read more)