This Hubble photograph shows two spiral galaxies colliding together. Known as the Antenna Galaxies, aka NGC 4038-4039, these two galaxies started interacting a few hundred million years ago. Thanks to the galactic interaction, perturbed gas clouds in both galaxies collapse into regions of furious star formation (these are the blue regions). Most of these regions will disperse their stars into galactic disks, but some will remain on as super star clusters – similar to the globular star clusters we see in our Milky Way.
Continue reading “Colliding Spiral Galaxies Captured by Hubble”
What’s Up this Week: October 16 – October 22, 2006
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! As dark skies return at a sane hour, we’ll spend this week checking in on galactic star clusters and nebulae. No scope? No problem! The brilliant Venus is back just before dawn and the week ends with one of the year’s most reliable meteor showers. So turn an eye towards the sky, because…
Here’s what’s up!
Continue reading “What’s Up this Week: October 16 – October 22, 2006”
Gas Bubble Photo Wins NRAO Prize
A beautiful photograph taken by Jayanne English and Jeroen Stil has won a $1,000 prize from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. The photograph shows a dusty bubble of gas blown inside the gas disk of the Milky Way. This galactic shell’s, officially known as GS 62.1+0.2-18, is located about 30,000 light-years from Earth. The bubble is sculpted by the powerful interstellar winds and radiation from a few dozen massive, hot stars.
Continue reading “Gas Bubble Photo Wins NRAO Prize”
Astronauts Relocate Soyuz Spacecraft
The crew of Expedition 14 took a short ride outside the station last week when they repositioned a Soyuz capsule on the International Space Station. They undocked from the Zvezda port, and then redocked to the Zarya module about 20 minutes later. This Soyuz shuffling was necessary to prepare for the arrival of a new Russian Progress cargo ship, later this month.
Continue reading “Astronauts Relocate Soyuz Spacecraft”
Mars Express Sees Water’s History on the Red Planet
Most of humanity’s Mars-bound fleet of spacecraft is searching the Red Planet for evidence of its watery past. New evidence gathered by ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft is helping scientists fine tune their theories. A radar instrument on the spacecraft has turned up water ice in Mars’ upper layers; a mineral mapping instrument has discovered chemicals formed in a wet environment; and its powerful camera has picked out obvious features on the surface of Mars formed by running water. Here’s a breakdown of what Mars Express has found so far.
Continue reading “Mars Express Sees Water’s History on the Red Planet”
String of Pearls in Saturn’s Atmosphere
This Cassini photograph shows a strange line of white dots in a line across the atmosphere in Saturn’s northern latitudes. The image was made using Cassini’s visual and infrared mapping spectrometer, and the line of dots are clearings in Saturn’s cloud system. There are more than two dozen of these clearings, spaced apart by about 3.5 degrees in longitude. Scientists think they might be caused by a large cloud formation or wave that encircles the whole planet.
Continue reading “String of Pearls in Saturn’s Atmosphere”
New Telescope Will Search for Asteroids and Map Out the Universe
A newly built observatory on Maui is getting ready to release a flood of astronomical data. The 1.8 metre Pan-STARRS telescope will perform an automated search for asteroids that threaten the Earth. While it’s searching for asteroids, the telescope will also build up one of the most detailed maps of our surrounding Universe. Researchers will use this data to create a 3-dimensional map of galaxies and dark matter, and measure the properties of the dark energy accelerating the expansion of the Universe.
Continue reading “New Telescope Will Search for Asteroids and Map Out the Universe”
Day and Night on an Extrasolar Planet
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has measured the day and night time temperatures of an extrasolar planet. This planet is located 40 light-years away, circling the star Upsilon Andromedae. It’s classified as a “hot Jupiter”, and orbits its parent star once every 4.6 days. The temperature difference between the day and night sides is enormous – differing about about 1,400 degrees Celsius (2,550 degrees Fahrenheit). Although the planet itself is tidally locked to the star, and always presents one face, its atmosphere probably does swirl around, and distributes the heat somewhat.
Continue reading “Day and Night on an Extrasolar Planet”
Hubbles Sees Galaxies Under Construction
The latest image released from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a beautiful view of a large galaxy being assembled from a collection of small galaxies. The large galaxy, officially known as MRC 1138-262, but nicknamed the Spider Galaxy, contains dozens of smaller star-forming galaxies. It’s incredibly far away, 10.6 billion years, so we see it as it looked only 3 billion years after the Big Bang. These observations match commonly held theories about how small irregular galaxies merge together to form the larger structures we see today.
Continue reading “Hubbles Sees Galaxies Under Construction”
Night Side Atmosphere on Venus
Mars may get most of the news, but don’t forget there’s a spacecraft orbiting Venus too. New images released from ESA’s Venus Express spacecraft show new details about our twin planet’s atmosphere. These night-side infrared images reveal thermal radiation emanating from beneath the planet’s thick obscuring cloud deck. The clouds themselves are stretched out because of high-speed winds in the atmosphere.
Continue reading “Night Side Atmosphere on Venus”