European Association for Astronomy Education

Largest Sky Map Revealed: An Animated Flight Through the Universe. The first public data release from BOSS, the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey. Led by Berkeley Lab scientists, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey's BOSS is bigger than all other spectroscopic surveys combined for measuring the universe's large-scale structure.

The Third Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-III) has issued Data Release 9 (DR9), the first public release of data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). In this release BOSS, the largest of SDSS-III's four surveys, provides spectra for 535,995 newly observed galaxies, 102,100 quasars, and 116,474 stars, plus new information about objects in previous Sloan surveys (SDSS-I and II).

Source Universe Today

Mosaic of Mount Sharp inside Curiosity’s Gale Crater landing site.
Image credits: Ken Kremer and Marco Di Lorenzo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Ken Kremer/Marco Di Lorenzo.

The Curiosity rover has beamed back the first detailed images of Mount Sharp, offering a stupendous initial view of her ultimate driving goal, and is now in the midst of a crucial “brain transplant” this weekend that will transform her into a fully operational rover.

The science team will direct the six-wheeled Curiosity to begin climbing Mount Sharp at some later date during the rovers’ two year primary mission after traversing and extensively investigating the floor of her landing site inside Gale Crater.

The Perseid meteor shower is underway. There's more to see than meteors, however, when the shower peaks on August 11th through 13th. The brightest planets in the solar system are lining up in the middle of the display.

Source: NASA Science News

Rover’s Self Portrait. Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The rover Curiosity continues her marathon run of milestone achievements – snapping her 1st self portrait and 1st 360 degree panorama since touchdown inside Gale Crater barely over 2 sols, or Martian days ago.

To take all these new images, Curiosity used a new camera, the just-activated higher resolution navigation cameras (Navcam) positioned on the mast. Several of the new images provide the best taste yet of the stupendous vistas coming soon.

Source: NASA Science Casts

A key ingredient of Earth's strangest clouds does not come from Earth. New data from NASA's AIM spacecraft shows that "meteor smoke" is essential to the formation of noctilucent clouds.

Source: NASA Science News

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona .

With split-second timing, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured an amazing snapshot of Curiosity parachuting to the surface of Mars.(read more)

Source: NASA Science News

The most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation. (read more)

Source: ESA

Gale crater - 154 km wide.
Image credits: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).

Much like a treasure map branded with an ‘X’ to mark the site of buried bounty, NASA’s rover Curiosity will be targeting its very own ‘X’ inside Gale Crater, to seek out the signs of past water – and maybe even life – on the Red Planet. (read more)

Source: ESO Photo Release eso1231

VLT image of the spiral galaxy NGC 1187.
Image credit: ESO

A new image taken with ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows the galaxy NGC 1187. This impressive spiral lies about 60 million light-years away in the constellation of Eridanus (The River). NGC 1187 has hosted two supernova explosions during the last thirty years, the latest one in 2007. This picture of the galaxy is the most detailed ever taken.(read more)

Source: NASA Science Casts

How do you deposit a massive SUV-sized nuclear-powered rover to the surface of an alien planet without making an SUV-sized crater? NASA's solution for Curiosity will be attempted for the first time on August 5/6 when they gently lower the rover to the red sands of Mars using a Sky Crane.