This photograph, taken by the Japanese Space Agency’s AKARI spacecraft, shows the Large Magellanic Cloud – a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way visible from the Southern Hemisphere. The spacecraft is in the process of scanning the entire sky in the infrared spectrum. This view of the Large Magellanic Cloud shows how the distribution of gas and dust that forms a disk-like structure. The bright region in the bottom-left of the image is the famous Tarantula Nebula, where many new stars are forming.
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A Star Peeks Through Saturn’s Rings
This Cassini image shows a star peeking through Saturn’s rings. Scientists use these kinds of images to study the thickness and consistency of the rings. As the light from the obscured star dims and brightens, it can give researchers clues about how various features might have formed. Cassini took this image on September 26, 2006 when it was approximately 515,000 kilometers (320,000 miles) from Saturn.
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Supercomputer Simulates Stellar Evolution
One of the most powerful supercomputers on Earth has simulated the interiors of low mass stars, helping scientists understand their evolution. As these stars exhaust their hydrogen fuel, they eject helium into their surrounding neighbourhood. But the quantities of this ejected helium didn’t match observations by telescopes. This new simulation shows that stars can actually destroy some of this helium inside the star, instead of ejecting it into space.
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NASA is Go for Hubble Repair
Finally some good news for the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA announced a new space shuttle mission to repair and upgrade the aging space telescope. This fifth and final visit to Hubble is tentatively scheduled for Fall 2008. Astronauts will install two new instruments: the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, which will help probe large-scale structures in the Universe, and the Wide Field Camera 3, a very sensitive instrument capable of seeing from infrared to ultraviolet wavelengths.
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Podcast: Meteor Showers. Yes, the Sky is Falling
Dress warmly, gather some friends and family, and head outside to watch sand burn in the upper atmosphere. There’s nothing like a good meteor shower. Fraser and Pamela explain this beautiful phenomenon: what causes them, the best storms and showers to watch for, and different types of meteors you might see.
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What’s Up this Week: October 30 – November 5, 2006
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The Moon has returned again to the night sky and what perfect timing. Be sure to give your visiting “trick or treat” monsters a view of the lunar surface. Or better yet? Comet SWAN! Mid-week also brings on the Taurid meteor shower along with plenty of history and other objects to explore. It’s time to set sail on the wings of the night, because…
Here’s what’s up!
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A New Target for Deep Impact
NASA announced today that it will be extending Deep Impact’s mission, giving it a chance to visit another comet. The mission made big news when it slammed an impactor spacecraft into Comet Tempel 1 in July, 2005. NASA had hoped they could steer the spacecraft past another comet, to continue its scientific discoveries. Mission planners chose Comet Boethin as the spacecraft’s next target, which it should be able to reach in December, 2008.
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Subtle Saturn
This beautiful view of Saturn was taken by Cassini when it was looking through the dark side of the planet’s rings. The diagonal slice through the photo is Saturn’s shadow falling across the rings. Cassini took this image on September 11, 2006 when it was approximately 1.1 million kilometres (700,000 miles) from Saturn.
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Dark Nebula Slithers Across the Sky
This Spitzer photograph contains several nebulae located in the galactic plane of the Milky Way. The dark, snake-like nebula at the upper left contains dozens of huge newborn stars, some with 50 times the mass of our Sun. The red sphere in the image is a supernova remnant. Before it exploded, the central star probably played a role in the creation of the dark nebulae in the region.
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Gamma Rays Pour From the Edge of a Supermassive Black Hole
Astronomers have discovered gamma rays streaming from the vicinity of the supermassive black hole at the heart of galaxy M87. These gamma rays have energy levels of more than a million million times the energy of visible light. Fortunately, these rays are stopped by our atmosphere. A special instrument called H.E.S.S., located in Namibia, can detect when these rays strike our atmosphere, and trace back the source. Astronomers have determined that a region not much larger than our Solar System around the black hole is responsible for this outpouring of gamma rays; the black hole is acting like a cosmic particle accelerator.
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