Telescopes – Page 3 – Slugger O'Toole

Destination: Vesta!

Pete Baker on June 14, 2011, 7:57 pm | Readers 4

Nasa’s Dawn spacecraft will arrive at the 530km wide asteroid Vesta on 16 July, where it will spend the next 12 months in orbit. Then it’s on to the dwarf planet, Ceres [950km wide]. Images Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA. The Hubble Space Telescope has already taken a look at Vesta but, on 1 June, Dawn captured its own views – at a distance of about 480,000km – to assist in the final navigation stage. And Nasa have released those looped images as a video. From the JPL Nasa press …

Spectacular Solar Eruption

Pete Baker on June 8, 2011, 2:57 pm | Readers 11

Wondrous images from Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory of the spectacular eruption that accompanied an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare on June 7. [Image/video credit: NASA SDO] And, via the Professor, Geeked on Goddard provides further video courtesy Helioviewer.org and a narration by The Sun Today. As LittleSDOHMI notes This Earth-directed CME [Coronal Mass Ejection] is moving at 1400 km/s according to NASA models. Due to its angle, however, effects on Earth should be fairly small. Nevertheless, it may generate space weather effects …

“damn, what a sky…”

Pete Baker on May 27, 2011, 7:53 pm | Readers 18

[Image credit: ESO/Y. Beletsky] Clear skies are everything in visible-light astronomy, and they don’t come much clearer that the skies above the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] array on top of Cerro Paranal in Chile’s Atacama Desert. As this amazing time-lapse video of the VLT in operation, by Stephane Guisard and Jose Francisco Salgado, shows. There’s little I can say to prepare you for these wondrous images. Simply stunning. Via the Professor. And via Popsci’s Clay Dillow, who warns “it …

Voyager: Humanity’s Farthest Journey

Pete Baker on April 30, 2011, 5:55 pm | Readers 40

While waiting for Endeavour’s final voyage, you can catch up, metaphorically, with the ongoing scientific odyssey of those other still-nimble Voyagers as they head towards the vastness of interstellar space. ( Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) NasaTV has Thursday’s special science presentation on the mission with a panel of the Voyager team – including Ed Stone, who’s been there since 1972, and Ann Druyan, creative director of the group, led by Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, who put together the Golden Record both Voyagers carry. …

Chandra finds evidence of Tycho’s origin

Pete Baker on April 27, 2011, 7:35 pm | Readers 17

Nasa’s Chandra X-ray observatory has been in orbit since 1999 and it’s still producing results. Like this stunning image of the remnant of the Type Ia supernova first observed by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe in 1572. The data for the images was collected in 283 hours of observation from 2 pointings between April 29, 2003 and May 3, 2009. (Credit: NASA/CXC/Chinese Academy of Sciences/F. Lu et al) From the text accompanying Chandra’s Tycho photo album This new image of Tycho’s supernova remnant, …

Enceladus ‘footprint’ on Saturn

Pete Baker on April 24, 2011, 7:59 pm | Readers 16

Nasa’s Cassini probe has been exploring Saturn’s system of moons since 2004 – some archived posts here. Recently it’s watched the weather on Titan and tasted Enceladus’ briny breath. That briny breath is responsible for the latest observed phenomenon – Aurora from Saturn moon ‘circuit’. Image credits: NASA/JPL/University of Colorado/Central Arizona College. Image details here. From the Cassini mission press release “The footprint discovery at Saturn is one of the most important fields and particle revelations from Cassini and ultimately may help us …

Solar Dynamics Observatory One Year On

Pete Baker on April 21, 2011, 4:30 pm | Readers 3

One year on from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) First Light and Nasa have released a compilation of wondrous clips of its observations of our local star. [Video credit: Nasa SDO] They have selected 12 of the most beautiful, interesting, and mesmerizing events seen by SDO during its first year. In the order they appear in the video the events are: 1. Prominence Eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on March 30, 2010 2. Cusp Flow from AIA in 171 Angstroms on …

“Of the 54 new planet candidates found in the habitable zone, five are near Earth-sized.”

Pete Baker on February 3, 2011, 3:19 pm | Readers 1

The Irish Times has a detailed report noting the confirmed discovery of 6 large exo-planets closely orbiting a star in the system, Kepler-11, approximately 2,000 light years from Earth. Even more remarkable are reports that the Kepler space observatory, launched in March 2009, first light in April 2009, has now identified 1,235 planetary candidates – and 54 candidates within the habitable zone – from the data for 156,453 stars observed from the beginning of the science observations on 2 May through 16 September 2009. From the Nasa …

“It is all part of a grand cycle that turns over the course of billions of years”

Pete Baker on January 4, 2011, 10:53 pm | Readers 11

A wondrous composite image of our nearest galactic neighbour, the Andromeda galaxy, as unveiled on the BBC’s Stargazing Live programme tonight. Combining an infrared view from ESA’s Herschel observatory with an X-ray view by the similarly orbiting XMM-Newton observatory, it shows at least five concentric rings of star-forming dust [infrared in orange] along with X-ray sources [in blue] where collapsed stars – white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes – are located. It’s a similar composite view to that taken of the Whirlpool …

Searching for exoplanets

Pete Baker on December 12, 2010, 3:26 pm | Readers 2

With the BBC noting a somewhat speculative report on a newly discovered exoplanet, Wasp 12b, here’s a short informative video from ESA Euronews on the ongoing search for planets beyond our solar system. And here are some previous posts on the topic. Pete Baker

Fermi Finds Galactic Gamma-ray-emitting Bubbles

Pete Baker on November 13, 2010, 4:19 pm | Readers 19

Fascinating discovery by Nasa’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which achieved first light in August 2008. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. From the Nasa press release NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has unveiled a previously unseen structure centered in the Milky Way. The feature spans 50,000 light-years and may be the remnant of an eruption from a supersized black hole at the center of our galaxy. “What we see are two gamma-ray-emitting bubbles that extend 25,000 light-years north and …

Deep Impact to Flyby Hartley 2

Pete Baker on November 4, 2010, 2:56 pm | Readers 10

As I mentioned last month, Nasa’s Deep Impact probe was redirected towards comet 103P/Hartley at the start of 2008 as part of the EPOXI mission – see post from the time. The image top was taken by the EPOXI mission on Nov. 2, 2010 from a distance of 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles). [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD] And, as the BBC report notes, Deep Impact should be flying within 700km of the comet just about now [1402 GMT]. Live coverage on Nasa TV. …

Clearing the cosmic fog

Pete Baker on October 21, 2010, 8:13 pm | Readers 12

As the BBC noted, astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope [VLT] have confirmed that galaxy UDFy-38135539, one of several candidates identified in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (UDF) image of the Fornax Constellation acquired with the telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 last year, is the most distant galaxy ever detected. [Image credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory and University of California, Santa Cruz) and the HUDF09 Team] Spectroscopic analysis of data collected during a 16 hour observation using the VLT identified a red shift …

“on the timescales involved in this event, we’re really catching it in the moment of happening”

Pete Baker on October 13, 2010, 10:09 pm | Readers 10

When the comet-like asteroid P/2010 A2 was identified as a suspected asteroid-asteroid collision in January this year it was the first such collision caught “in the act”. Images Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA). As the BBC notes, subsequent observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Rosetta probe suggest that the collision probably occurred in early 2009. Here’s a sequence of Hubble observations from January to May 2010, with scale. As the associated text explains The asteroid debris, dubbed P/2010 A2, appears to be …

Jupiter does it again!

Pete Baker on August 23, 2010, 12:23 pm | Readers 3

Via SpaceWeather. Amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa of Kumamoto city, Japan, has recorded another fireball on Jupiter – confirmed by other observations. Like the last time, there doesn’t appear to be any impact scar in the atmosphere. Here’s the short video showing the impact. That’s one less potentially dangerous object for us to worry about. All hail our friend and lord, Jupiter! Keeping Ogdy at bay… For now. Pete Baker

ESO’s VLT provides first 3-D image of supernova remnant

Pete Baker on August 5, 2010, 4:31 pm | Readers 308

As the BBC notes, having already observed the most massive star ever discovered ESO’s Very Large Telescope array [VLT] in Chile has now provided the first 3-D image of a supernova remnant. The first video is an artist’s impression of the material around recently exploded star, known as Supernova 1987A [SN 1987A]. Credit ESO/L. Calçada. From the ESO press release Unlike the Sun, which will die rather quietly, massive stars arriving at the end of their brief life explode as supernovae, hurling out …

Of giant, and more modest, stars

Pete Baker on July 21, 2010, 4:10 pm | Readers 6

The discovery of the most massive star ever observed makes the BBC’s, and other’s, headlines. Identified by astronomers using a combination of new observations on ESO’s Very Large Telescope facility in Chile and data gathered previously with the Hubble Space Telescope, R136a1 has a mass about 265 times that of our own Sun. Image credits ESO/P. Crowther/C.J. Evans. It’s sited in a cluster known as RMC 136a, in the Large Magellanic Cloud, 165,000 light-years away. From the BBC report Many objects in the very first population of stars to shine …

“The eyes of WISE have not blinked since launch”

Pete Baker on July 17, 2010, 3:33 pm | Readers 1

Nasa marks the completion of the first survey of the entire sky by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer [WISE] with the release of a new image from the survey – a seven square degrees region including the Pleiades cluster. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA. WISE was launched in December last year and saw first light in January. Here’s a short video medley of previously released images. More images, including this one of Tycho’s supernova remnant, at Nasa’s WISE image gallery. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA Pete …

It’s Science Friday!

Pete Baker on July 9, 2010, 12:32 pm | Readers 1

Here’s a short interesting video, with stunning images, on the solar weather under investigation with the help of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Pete Baker

“it’s a thing of beauty”

Pete Baker on July 5, 2010, 1:36 pm | Readers 1

Launched in May 2009 ESA’s super-cool Planck observatory achieved first light in September. Now, as the BBC’s Jonathan Amos notes, ESA have released Planck’s first all-sky image. “This is the moment that Planck was conceived for,” says ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David Southwood. “We’re not giving the answer. We are opening the door to an Eldorado where scientists can seek the nuggets that will lead to deeper understanding of how our Universe came to be and how it …