Space and astronomy news
Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! The night is alive this week with everything from bright planets to the first sliver of the returning Moon. This is a great time to explore with binoculars or get out your telescope to pick up some challenging studies. So turn your eyes to the skies, because…
Here’s what’s up!
Continue reading “What’s Up this Week: August 21 – August 27, 2006”
NASA has announced a $500 million investment in two aerospace companies: SpaceX and Rocketplane-Kistler to help develop vehicles capable of resupplying the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle is retired. The funding is split between the two companies, and requires them to meet a series of milestones as they develop their vehicles between now and the end of the decade. 20 companies originally submitted proposals to win the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) demonstration program contact.
Continue reading “NASA Invests in SpaceX and Rocketplane Kistler”
There’s more dark matter than regular matter in the Universe, and they’re normally all mixed up together in galaxies. But astronomers using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory have found a situation where dark matter and normal matter can be wrenched apart. In a collision between giant galaxy clusters, hot gas clouds in the clusters encounter friction as they pass through one another, separating them from the stars. The dark matter isn’t affected by this friction either, so astronomers were able to calculate the effect of its gravity on regular matter.
Continue reading “Galaxy Collision Separates Out the Dark Matter”
Did the Earth capture the Moon with its gravity, did they form together in the early Solar System, or did the Moon form when a Mars-sized object smashed into the Earth. New data from ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft has turned up deposits of calcium on the lunar surface. By measuring these minerals, as well as aluminium, magnesium and silicon, scientists can better map out the composition of the Moon, and predict what kind of impact might have happened.
Continue reading “Linking the Formation of the Earth and Moon”
A six year study by NASA’s Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, or FUSE, satellite has turned up previously hidden quantities of deuterium – a heavier isotope of hydrogen. Astronomers have wondered for years why the levels of deuterium in the Milky Way vary across the galaxy. FUSE has found that deuterium tends to bind to interstellar grains of dust, hiding it from view. Extreme events, like supernovae shockwaves, can vapourize the grains of dust, freeing the deuterium, and making it visible.
Continue reading “Hidden Stores of Deuterium Discovered in the Milky Way”
Since the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, the Universe has converted 20% of its original matter into stars. This is according to a new survey by an international team of astronomers. Other than stars, a tiny fraction of non-primordial material is dust expelled from massive stars and supermassive black holes. The survey was made using the Millennium Galaxy Catalogue, which contains more than 10,000 large galaxies. It looks like the Universe will need another 70 billion years to use up all its original fuel.
Continue reading “Universe Has Used Up a Fifth of Its Gas Tank”
Astronomers have gathered new data on a formation of stars called the Quintuplet cluster. These are a group of stars near the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The new data comes from the W.M. Keck telescope, which gathered high resolution images of the stars. They appear to be massive binary stars near the end of their short lives, which are giving off huge amounts of gas and dust. These dust plumes are creating pinwheel-shaped spirals around the stars as they orbit each other.
Continue reading “Swirling Pinwheels Near the Heart of the Milky Way”
ESA’s Planck space telescope recently spent two weeks in a chamber that simulates the vacuum and temperature of space. When it finally launches in 2008, the European spacecraft will explore the cosmic background radiation; the afterglow of the Big Bang. Engineers needed to make sure that its instruments will perform well under the harsh conditions of space, and so far, everything checks out. The various components of the mission will continue to be tested separately, and then tested together in the coming months.
Continue reading “Planck Telescope Tested in Vacuum”
New photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope show some of the faintest stars ever seen in a globular cluster. The cluster is NGC 6397, which formed almost right at the beginning of the Universe, nearly 12 billion years ago. This means the stars in the formation are made of the primordial material that formed shortly after the Bang Bang. These dim stars are white dwarfs that were once more massive versions of our own Sun. They cool at a very predictable rate, giving astronomers another way to calculate the age of the Universe.
Continue reading “Hubble Reveals Dimmest Stars in a Nearby Cluster”
NASA has announced that the space shuttle Atlantis is scheduled to lift off on August 27, 2006. If all goes well, the shuttle will blast off from Cape Canaveral at 2230 GMT (4:30 pm EDT) and return to the International Space Station, finally continuing its construction. Over the course of three spacewalks, the shuttle crew will install the P3/P4 truss onto the station, which contains a set of giant solar arrays, batteries, and electronics.
Continue reading “Atlantis Scheduled for August 27 Launch”