This view of Saturn’s moon Hyperion has been given false colour enhancements to highlight its geologic features. Photographs in ultraviolet, green, and infrared were combined together on computer, and then superimposed over a clear-filter image to preserve brightness. Scientists don’t fully understand why Hyperion has the variations, but it could be due to the size of the ice grains on its surface.
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SMART-1’s Final Days
After 16 months of successful observations, ESA’s SMART-1 is about to make its final contribution to lunar science. On September 3, 2006, it’ll crash into the Moon in full view of Earth- and space-based telescopes, giving astronomers a glimpse of what’s underneath the surface. In its final orbits, the spacecraft will be flying so low that it might crash into a hill on a previous pass, giving different Earth-based telescopes a better view. The final crater is expected to be 3-10 metres (10-33 feet) wide and 1 metre (3 feet) deep.
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Dark Energy Mission Chosen
A new space telescope concept has been chosen by NASA to help uncover the source of dark energy; the mysterious force accelerating the expansion of the Universe. Called Destiny, or the Dark Energy Space Telescope, the orbiting observatory would detect and observe more than 3,000 supernovae over the course of 2 years. This data will help astronomers trace back the expansion of the Universe, and calculate if the rate of acceleration has changed over time. If all goes well, it’ll launch in 2013.
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Twin Planemos Discovered
Astronomers have turned up plenty of extrasolar planets, but a newly discovered binary pair of planets is quite the find. The system consists of a 7-Jupiter mass planet and a 14-Jupiter mass planet… but no star. These planets – or “planemos” – just orbit each other. Their discovery challenges the current theory that planets are thought to form out of the disks of gas and dust that surround newborn stars.
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Brown Dwarf Lived Inside Another Star
ESO’s Very Large Telescope has uncovered an interesting stellar pair: a hot white dwarf and a brown dwarf orbiting each other every two hours. In the past, the heavier star was actually a bloated red giant, and the brown dwarf orbited inside its envelope. The friction of moving through the red giant caused the brown dwarf to spiral in to its current position. Finally, the star collapsed down to a white dwarf, leaving the two objects in this embrace.
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Podcast: A Puzzling Difference
Imagine looking at red houses, and sometimes you see a crow fly past. But every time you look at a blue house, there’s always a crow flying right in front of the house. The crow and the house could be miles apart, so this must be impossible, right? Well, according to a new survey if you look at a quasar, you’ll see a galaxy in front 25% of the time. But for gamma ray bursts, there’s almost always an intervening galaxy. Even though they could be separated by billions of light years. Figure that out. Dr. Jason X. Prochaska, from the University of California, Santa Cruz speaks to me about the strange results they’ve found, and what could be the cause.
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Jupiter’s Great Red Spots
Astronomers from UC Berkeley used the massive W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to capture this infrared image of Jupiter and its two massive storms: the Great Red Spot and the smaller Oval BA. The image was taken on July 20, using the telescope’s adaptive optics system to sharpen the image. Scientists still aren’t sure why the spots have turned red, but they think it might be that they dredge darker material up from deeper in the planet’s atmosphere; when exposed to ultraviolet light from the Sun, this material turns red.
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Hubble View of a Supernova Remnant
This Hubble Space Telescope photograph contains a supernova remnant located in the Small Magellanic Cloud – it’s bluish haze at the centre of the photo. The remnant is known as E0102, and it’s about 50 light-years away from the edge of a massive star forming region called N 76. The light from the supernova itself would have reached us about 2,000 years ago.
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Help Look for Space Dust
If you’ve got keen eyes, a computer connection, and a little spare time, you could help discover particles of interstellar dust. Poring over the samples returned by NASA’s Stardust probe is a big job, so the scientists have opened up the task to volunteers through the Internet. Using a virtual microscope, volunteers can download images and search for the telltale track of a interstellar dust particles that were captured in aerogel. Discoverers will get a chance to name the particles they discover.
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Syndication Service Offline for a While
For various reasons, I’ve decided to take my syndication feed offline while I think of a new solution. Hopefully this won’t affect people too much.
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