Credits: NASA Science News
Which is brighter--a flurry of Perseid fireballs or a supermoon? Sky watchers will find out this August when the biggest and brightest full Moon of 2014 arrives just in time for the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Source: NASA Science News
Opportunity's route from the landing site inside Eagle
Crater (upper left) to its location after the July 27 (Sol 3735).
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/NMMNHS
NASA's Opportunity Mars rover, which landed on the Red Planet in 2004, now holds the off-Earth driving record of 25+ miles, and is not far from completing a full extraterrestrial marathon.(learn more)
Source: NASA Science News
Images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko taken on July 14, 2014, by the OSIRIS imaging system aboard the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft have allowed scientists to create this three-dimensional shape model of the nucleus. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM
As the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe approaches Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for an August rendezvous, the comet's core is coming into sharper focus. Today ESA released a new set of images and a must-see 3D model.(read more)
Source: NASA Science News
A mysterious X-ray signal from the Perseus cluster of galaxies, which researchers say cannot be explained by known physics, could be a key clue to the nature of Dark Matter.(learn more)
Source: ESA/Hubble Science heic1416
Colour image of galaxy cluster MCS J0416.1–240.
Image credits:ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields.
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have mapped the mass within a galaxy cluster more precisely than ever before. Created using observations from Hubble's Frontier Fields observing programme, the map shows the amount and distribution of mass within MCS J0416.1–2403, a massive galaxy cluster found to be 160 trillion times the mass of the Sun. The detail in this mass map was made possible thanks to the unprecedented depth of data provided by new Hubble observations, and the cosmic phenomenon known as strong gravitational lensing. (read more)
Source: ESO Photo Release eso1422
The star cluster NGC 329.
Image credits:ESO/G. Beccari
In this striking new image from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile young stars huddle together against a backdrop of clouds of glowing gas and lanes of dust. The star cluster, known as NGC 3293, would have been just a cloud of gas and dust itself about ten million years ago, but as stars began to form it became the bright group of stars we see here. Clusters like this are celestial laboratories that allow astronomers to learn more about how stars evolve. (learn more)
Source: ESA/Hubble Science Release heic1415
Centaurus A halo.
Image credits: ESA/Hubble, NASA, Digitized Sky Survey, MPG/ESO.
Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have probed the extreme outskirts of the stunning elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. The galaxy’s halo of stars has been found to extend much further from the galaxy’s centre than expected and the stars within this halo seem to be surprisingly rich in heavy elements. This is the most remote portion of an elliptical galaxy ever to have been explored.(learn more)
Image credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
Credit: NASA Science News
New images of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko show that the target of ESA's Rosetta probe is no ordinary comet.
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, was imaged on 14 July 2014 by OSIRIS, Rosetta's scientific imaging system, from a distance of approximately 12 000 km (image on the right).
The image suggests that the comet may consist of two parts: one segment seems to be rather elongated, while the other appears more bulbous.(learn more)
Source: NASA Science News
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft is only a year away from Pluto. Researchers are buzzing with anticipation as NASA prepares to encounter a new world for the first time in decades.(read more)
Image Credit: IAU / M. Kornmesser / N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)
The International Astronomical Union has unveiled a worldwide contest, NameExoWorlds, which gives the public a role in naming planets and their host stars beyond the solar system. This contest is creating some controversy. Nonetheless, it is an interesting contest for teachers to work with their students. (learn more)
Credits: NASA Science News
Titan's ice shell, which overlies a very salty ocean, varies in thickness around the moon.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI/Univ. of Arizona/G. Mitri/University of Nantes
Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Cassini mission have found evidence of an ocean inside Saturn's largest moon, Titan, which might be as salty as the Earth's Dead Sea.(learn more)
Credit: ESO Photo Release eso1420
The Gum 15 star formation region.
Image credit: ESO
The little-known cloud of cosmic gas and dust called Gum 15 is the birthplace and home of hot young stars. Beautiful and deadly, these stars mould the appearance of their mother nebula and, as they progress into adulthood, will eventually also be the death of her. (learn more)
