Spitzer Space Telescope Archives

December 22, 2014December 23, 2015 by Matt Williams

The Milky Way’s New Neighbor May Tell Us Things About the Universe

This dwarf spheroidal galaxy in the constellation Fornax is a satellite of our Milky Way and is one of 10 used in Fermi's dark matter search. The motions of the galaxy's stars indicate that it is embedded in a massive halo of matter that cannot be seen. Credit: ESO/Digital Sky Survey 2

As part of the Local Group, a collection of 54 galaxies and dwarf galaxies that measures 10 million light years in diameter, the Milky Way has no shortage of neighbors. However, refinements made in the field of astronomy in recent years are leading to the observation of neighbors that were previously unseen. This, in turn, is changing our view of the local universe to one where things are a lot more crowded.

For instance, scientists working out of the Special Astrophysical Observatory in Karachai-Cherkessia, Russia, recently found a previously undetected dwarf galaxy that exists 7 million light years away. The discovery of this galaxy, named KKs3, and those like it is an exciting prospect for scientists, since they can tell us much about how stars are born in our universe.

The Russian team, led by Prof Igor Karachentsev of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), used the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) to locate KKs3 in the southern sky near the constellation of Hydrus. The discovery occurred back in August 2014, when they finalized their observations a series of stars that have only one ten-thousandth the mass of the Milky Way.

Such dwarf galaxies are far more difficult to detect than others due to a number of distinct characteristics. KKs3 is what is known as a dwarf spheroid (or dSph) galaxy, a type that has no spiral arms like the Milky Way and also suffers from an absence of raw materials (like dust and gas). Since they lack the materials to form new stars, they are generally composed of older, fainter stars.

: Image of the KKR 25 dwarf spheroid galaxy obtained by the Special Astrophysical Observatory using the HST. Credit: SAO RAS

In addition, these galaxies are typically found in close proximity to much larger galaxies, like Andromeda, which appear to have gobbled up their gas and dust long ago. Being faint in nature, and so close to far more luminous objects, is what makes them so tough to spot by direct observation.

Team member Prof Dimitry Makarov, also of the Special Astrophysical Observatory, described the process: “Finding objects like Kks3 is painstaking work, even with observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. But with persistence, we’re slowly building up a map of our local neighborhood, which turns out to be less empty than we thought. It may be that are a huge number of dwarf spheroidal galaxies out there, something that would have profound consequences for our ideas about the evolution of the cosmos.”

Painstaking is no exaggeration. Since they are devoid of materials like clouds of gas and dust fields, scientists are forced to spot these galaxies by identifying individual stars. Because of this, only one other isolated dwarf spheroidal has been found in the Local Group: a dSph known as KKR 25, which was also discovered by the Russian research team back in 1999.

But despite the challenges of spotting them, astronomers are eager to find more examples of dSph galaxies. As it stands, it is believed that these isolated spheroids must have been born out of a period of rapid star formation, before the galaxies were stripped of their dust and gas or used them all up.

Studying more of these galaxies can therefore tell us much about the process star formation in our universe. The Russian team expects that the task will become easier in the coming years as the James Webb Space Telescope and the European Extremely Large Telescope begin service.

Much like the Spitzer Space Telescope, these next-generation telescopes are optimized for infrared detection and will therefore prove very useful in picking out faint stars. This, in turn, will also give us a more complete understanding of our universe and all that it holds.

Further Reading: Royal Astronomical Society

December 15, 2014December 23, 2015 by Matt Williams

Just in Time for the Holidays – Galactic Encounter Puts on Stunning Display

That's the case with NGC 2207 and IC 2163, which are located about 130 million light-years from Earth, in the constellation of Canis Major. Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/STScI/JPL-Caltech

At this time of year, festive displays of light are to be expected. This tradition has clearly not been lost on the galaxies NHC 2207 and IC 2163. Just in time for the holidays, these colliding galaxies, which are located within the Canis Major constellation (some 130 million light-years from Earth,) were seen putting on a spectacular lights display for us folks here on Earth!

And while this galaxy has been known to produce a lot of intense light over the years, the image above is especially luminous. A composite using data from the Chandra Observatory and the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, it shows the combination of visible, x-ray, and infrared light coming from the galactic pair.

In the past fifteen years, NGC 2207 and IC 2163 have hosted three supernova explosions and produced one of the largest collections of super bright X-ray lights in the known universe. These special objects – known as “ultraluminous X-ray sources” (ULXs) – have been found using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

While the true nature of ULXs is still being debated, it is believed that they are a peculiar type of star X-ray binary. These consist of a star in a tight orbit around either a neutron star or a black hole. The strong gravity of the neutron star or black hole pulls matter from the companion star, and as this matter falls toward the neutron star or black hole, it is heated to millions of degrees and generates X-rays.

the core of galaxy Messier 82 (M82), where two ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, reside (X-1 and X-2). Credit: NASA — *The core of galaxy Messier 82 (M82), where two ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, reside (X-1 and X-2). Credit: NASA*

Data obtained from Chandra has determined that – much like the Milky Way Galaxy – NGC 2207 and IC 2163 are sprinkled with many star X-ray binaries. In the new Chandra image, this x-ray data is shown in pink, which shows the sheer prevalence of x-ray sources within both galaxies.

Meanwhile, optical light data from the Hubble Space Telescope is rendered in red, green, and blue (also appearing as blue, white, orange, and brown due to color combinations,) and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope is shown in red.

The Chandra observatory spent far more time observing these galaxies than any previous ULX study, roughly five times as much. As a result, the study team – which consisted of researchers from Harvard University, MIT, and Sam Houston State University – were able to confirm the existence of 28 ULXs between NGC 2207 and IC 2163, seven of which had never before been seen.

In addition, the Chandra data allowed the team of scientists to observe the correlation between X-ray sources in different regions of the galaxy and the rate at which stars are forming in those same regions.

Galaxy mergers, such as the Mice Galaxies will be part of Galaxy Zoo's newest project. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope — *The Mice galaxies, seen here well into the process of merging. Credit: Hubble Space Telescope*

As the new Chandra image shows, the spiral arms of the galaxies – where large amounts of star formation is known to be occurring – show the heaviest concentrations of ULXs, optical light, and infrared. This correlation also suggests that the companion star in the star X-ray binaries is young and massive.

This in turn presents another possibility which has to do with star formation during galactic mergers. When galaxies come together, they produce shock waves that cause clouds of gas within them to collapse, leading to periods of intense star formation and the creation of star clusters.

The fact that the ULXs and the companion stars are young (the researchers estimate that they are only 10 million years old) would seem to confirm that they are the result of NGC 2207 and IC 2163 coming together. This seem a likely explanation since the merger between these two galaxies is still in its infancy, which is attested to by the fact that the galaxies are still separate.

They are expected to collide soon, a process which will make them look more like the Mice Galaxies (pictured above). In about one billion years time, they are expected to finish the process, forming a spiral galaxy that would no doubt resemble our own.

A paper describing the study was recently published on online with The Astrophysical Journal.

Further Reading: NASA/JPL, Chandra, arXiv Astrophysics

September 3, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Spotted: Asteroids ‘Smashing Themselves To Smithereens’ 1,200 Light-Years Away

An artist's conception of what scientists think was an asteroid collision near star NGC 2547-1D8, which is 1,200 light-years from Earth. An influx of dust was noticed from Earth between August 2012 and 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

When a crop of dust spread forth from the star NGC 2547-1D8 during 2012 observations, scientists quickly sprang into action. What they believe happened was two huge asteroids 1,200 light-years away crashed into each other. What’s more, researchers say that what they witnessed could herald planetary formation similar to what created our own solar system.

“We think two big asteroids crashed into each other, creating a huge cloud of grains the size of very fine sand, which are now smashing themselves into smithereens and slowly leaking away from the star,” stated lead author and graduate student Huan Meng of the University of Arizona.

The debris was tracked with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, and represents the first time scientists have picked up information before and after an event such as this.

Scientists did see dust variability from the system before, which prompted them to put it under close scrutiny — sometimes looking at it every day. The biggest surge took place across five months in 2012. Observations were interrupted because the star was too close to our Sun’s field of view; when it was safe to return, that’s when scientists spotted all the dust.

The Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA

“We not only witnessed what appears to be the wreckage of a huge smashup, but have been able to track how it is changing — the signal is fading as the cloud destroys itself by grinding its grains down so they escape from the star,” stated Kate Su of the University of Arizona, who is a co-author on the study.

It is believed that planets, moons and other objects in our solar system coalesced over millions of years from collisions such as this. The far-away collision did take place in a spot where planets could form some day, NASA noted, which makes it all the more interesting to scientists.

A paper on the research is available in the journal Science. Observations on the system continue.

Source: NASA

May 16, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Spitzer Mission Extension Not Approved In NASA Senior Review; Officials Say Budget Rewrite Possible

Artist's impression of the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA

“Constrained budget conditions” have prompted NASA to not approve a funding extension for the 11-year-old Spitzer Space Telescope after fiscal 2015, but Spitzer officials emphasized that doesn’t necessarily mean the mission is terminated.

“To be clear: Spitzer has not been canceled. Funding not yet identified, but NASA has asked us for a revised budget,” the Spitzer Twitter account wrote to several individuals after news broke that the telescope was not approved in agency’s Senior Review, a process to see how well ongoing missions are performing to expectations.

What this means is that the telescope is expected to go with the “baseline” plan to finish operations after the end of fiscal 2014 and terminate the mission by the end of fiscal 2015, a process that was already outlined in the NASA budget request for 2015. But there’s a chance, officials said, that this would not happen.

“The Spitzer project is invited to respond with a request for a budget augmentation to conduct continued operations with reduced operations costs,” read the NASA response to the 2014 senior review.

The bow shock of Zeta Ophiuchi, another runaway star observed by Spitzer (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This “will be considered during the FY 2016 budget formulation process,” NASA added. “If the administration proposes additional funding for Spitzer in the FY16 Budget, the project will be able to seamlessly continue operations in FY15, while awaiting final appropriations from the Congress for FY16.”

The mission was being reviewed in association with several other astrophysics missions, such as the Kepler space telescope — an exoplanet-hunting probe that was sidelined by a mechanical issue, but was approved in the same review for a new mission.

Spitzer drew concern in the senior review for its “significant current cost”, which is reportedly the most expensive among the missions being considered this time around. The cost also concerned the reviewers because Spitzer’s “observational capabilities are significantly reduced” since the telescope ran out of coolant in 2009.

That said, the so-called “warm” Spitzer mission — which allows it to view different parts of the infrared despite operating at a higher temperature — did impress reviewers with its ability to measure light, especially since it has been able to conduct wide-field surveys that “will not be approached” until the James Webb Space Telescope goes to orbit in 2018.

The 'Mountains of Creation' in the W5 region near Perseus, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / CfA — The ‘Mountains of Creation’ in the W5 region near Perseus, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / CfA

“The cost is particularly difficult in the context of an observatory with greatly reduced capabilities with respect to its prime mission,” the review read. “The mission also did not present substantial plans to reduce operations costs with such reduced capabilities. Given the budget climate, the SRP cannot recommend funding of Spitzer at the levels requested.”

While criticizing the cost, the senior review also noted Spitzer has been doing a lot of “unexpected science” such as looking at the atmosphere of exoplanets and brown dwarfs, and identifying the galaxies that are speeding away from Earth the fastest (also known as “high-redshift galaxies.”)

According to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, these are some of Spitzer’s other notable finds:

– Seeing light from a planet outside of the solar system, which was not in the design plans;

– Surveying stars in formation in clouds that are relatively close to Earth;

– Creating a better map of the Milky Way’s spiral arms.

NASA also regularly does image releases with wavelengths from all three of its “Great Observatories”: Spitzer, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Funding extension for both Chandra and Hubble were approved in the review. You can read more about the review at this website.

April 3, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Three NASA Telescopes Begin Hunt For Earliest Galaxies

A grouping of galaxies, known as J0717 (center) is visible in this Spitzer Space Telescope image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/P. Capak (Caltech)

Talk about turning back time. Three NASA observatories — the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Spitzer Space Telescope — are all working together to look for the universe’s first galaxies. The project is called “Frontier Fields” and aims to examine these galaxies through a technique called gravitational lensing, which allows astronomers to peer at more distant objects when massive objects in front bend their light.

“Our overall science goal with the Frontier Fields is to understand how the first galaxies in the universe assembled,” stated Peter Capak, a research scientist with the NASA/JPL Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology and the Spitzer lead for the Frontier Fields.

“This pursuit is made possible by how massive galaxy clusters warp space around them, kind of like when you look through the bottom of a wine glass.”

Using the three observatories allows investigators to peer at the galaxies in different light wavelengths (namely, infrared for Spitzer, shorter infrared and optical for Hubble, and X-rays for Chandra). The teams also plan to learn more about how the foreground clusters influence the “warping” of the galaxies behind.

The Hubble and Spitzer telescopes are designed to locate where the galaxies are (and if they are indeed early galaxies) while Chandra can map out the X-ray emissions to better determine the galaxies’ masses. An early example of this project at work was examination of Abell 2744, which yielded a distant find: Abell2744 Y1, one of the earliest known galaxies, which was born about 650 million years after the Big Bang.

Source: California Institute Of Technology

February 10, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Found! Distant Galaxy Spotted Just 650 Million Years After Big Bang

Hubble Space Telescope deep image of galaxy cluster Abell 2744. Credit: NASA, ESA, J. Lotz, M. Mountain, A. Koekemoer, and the HFF Team (STScI), and N. Laporte (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias)

Peering deep into the universe with the Hubble Space Telescope, a team of researchers have found an extremely distant galaxy. It was discovered in Abell 2744, a galaxy cluster. The galaxy (called Abell2744_Y1) was spotted at a time when it was just 650 million years after the universe-forming Big Bang (which makes it more than 13 billion years old).

This demonstrates the potential of a relatively new project, researchers said, called “Hubble Frontier Fields.” It’s part of an effort where Hubble and fellow NASA space telescopes Spitzer and the Chandra X-ray Observatory will examine six galaxy clusters that bend the light from more distant objects in the background. By doing this, researchers hope to learn more about galaxies formed in the universe’s first billion years.

“We expected to find very distant galaxies close to the cluster core, where the light amplification is maximum. However, this galaxy is very close to the edge of the Hubble image where the light is not strongly amplified,” stated Nicolas Laporte, a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias) who led the study.

“We are really lucky that we could find it in the small field of view of Hubble. In a related study led by Hakim Atek … more galaxies are analyzed but none is more distant than Abell2744_Y1.”

You can read the study in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters or in preprint version on Arxiv.

Source: Space Telescope Science Institute and Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands

January 29, 2014December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Greedy Galaxies Gobbled Gas, Stalling Star Formation Billions Of Years Ago

Arp 147 contains a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with an elliptical galaxy (left), triggering a wave of star formation. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/S.Rappaport et al, Optical: NASA/STScI

Like millionaires that burn through their cash too quickly, astronomers have found one factor behind why compact elliptical galaxies stopped growing stars about 11 billion years ago: they ate through their gas reserves.

The revelation comes as researchers released a new evolutionary track for compact elliptical galaxies that stopped their star formation when the universe was just three billion years old. When these galaxies ran out of gas, some of them cannibalized smaller galaxies to create giant elliptical galaxies. The “burned-out”galaxies have stars crowding 10 to 100 times more densely than elliptical galaxies formed more recently through a different evolutionary track.

“We at last show how these compact galaxies can form, how it happened, and when it happened. This basically is the missing piece in the understanding of how the most massive galaxies formed, and how they evolved into the giant ellipticals of today,” stated Sune Toft, who led the study and is a researcher at the Dark Cosmology Center at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen.

“This had been a great mystery for many years, because just three billion years after the Big Bang we see that half of the most massive galaxies have already completed their star formation.”

How massive elliptical galaxies evolved in about 13 billion years. Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Toft (Niels Bohr Institute), and A. Feild (STScI)

The team got a snapshot of these galaxies’ evolution by looking at a representative sample with the Hubble Space Telescope, specifically through the Cosmic Assembly Near-Infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS) and a spectroscopic survey called 3D-HST. To find out how old the stars were, they combined the Hubble work with data gathered from the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii.

Next, they examined ancient, fast-star-forming submillimeter galaxies with data gathered from a range of space and ground-based telescopes.

The Hubble Space Telescope. image credit: NASA, tweaked by D. Majaess.

“This multi-spectral information, stretching from optical light through submillimeter wavelengths, yielded a full suite of information about the sizes, stellar masses, star-formation rates, dust content, and precise distances of the dust-enshrouded galaxies that were present early in the universe,” Hubble’s news center stated.

The group found that that the submillimeter galaxies were likely “progenitors” of compact elliptical galaxies, as they share predicted characteristics of the ancestors. Further, researchers calculated that starbursts in submillimeter galaxies only went on for about 40 million years before the galaxies ran out of gas.

You can read the results in the Feb. 20 edition of the Astrophysical Journal or in prepublished version in Arxiv.

Source: Hubble News Center

January 8, 2014December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Space Telescopes Look Back 13.2 Billion Years and See Surprisingly Luminous Galaxies

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope joined forces to discover and characterize four unusually bright galaxies as they appeared more than 13 billion years ago, just 500 million years after the big bang. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz; Yale University), R. Bouwens and I. Labbé (Leiden University), and the Science Team.

What was the Universe like more than 13 billion years ago, just 500 million years after the big bang? New data from the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes reveal some surprisingly bright galaxies that are about 10 to 20 times more luminous than anything seen previously in that epoch.

Garth Illingworth from the University of California, Santa Cruz said the discovery of these four bright galaxies came from combining the power of both telescopes, but these galaxies lie right at the limit of the telescopes’ capabilities.

“We’re actually reaching back 13.2 billion years through the life of the Universe — that’s 96% of the life of the Universe that we are looking back at these galaxies,” said Illingworth, speaking at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington D.C. this week. “That’s an astonishing undertaking and an astonishing accomplishment that Hubble and Spitzer have achieved.”

Detail of the Hubble and Spitzer observations of a galaxy from the early Universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth (University of California, Santa Cruz), P. Oesch (University of California, Santa Cruz; Yale University), R. Bouwens and I. Labbé (Leiden University), and the Science Team.

Illingworth said the typical galaxy candidate from that far back in time is very faint and hard to see. But these new galaxies are about 15-20 % brighter than what astronomers have seen before at redshift 10.

The tiny are bright because they are bursting with star formation activity. The brightest one is forming stars approximately 50 times faster than the Milky Way does today. Although these fledgling galaxies are only one-twentieth the size of the Milky Way, they probably contain around a billion stars crammed together.

Astronomers think these bright, young galaxies grew exceptionally fast because of interactions and mergers of smaller infant galaxies that started forming stars even earlier in the Universe. Since the ancient time billions of years ago when the light that we now see started its long journey to us, they have probably kept growing to become similar to the largest modern galaxies. Many of the stars of these infant galaxies likely live on today in the centers of giant elliptical galaxies, much larger even than our own Milky Way.

Slide from Garth Illingworth's presentation at the 223rd American Astronomical Society meeting, describing the discovery of bright galaxies from early in the Universe. Credit: Garth Illingworth. — Slide from Garth Illingworth’s presentation at the 223rd American Astronomical Society meeting, describing the discovery of bright galaxies from early in the Universe. Credit: Garth Illingworth.

Illingworth said this era appears to be a timeframe where things were changing quite rapidly. “We’ve gone back to a very interesting time when the Universe is changing,” he said.

The galaxies were first detected with Hubble, and astronomers were able to measure their star-formation rates and sizes. But using Spitzer, the scientists were also able to measure the galaxies’ masses.

“This is the first-ever measurement of the mass density of the galaxies when the Universe was at 500 million years of age,” Illingworth said. “These galaxies are about a billion times the mass of our Sun, which is massive for those times, but still only 1% the mass of the Milky Way.”

Illingworth added that the mass measurements are rough estimates because of how challenging the task was.

Illingworth and team member Ivo Labbé from Leiden University said they are looking forward to finding out more about these galaxies, particularly from future observations with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.

“At the same time, the extreme masses and star formation rates are really mysterious,” Labbé said, “and we are eager to confirm them with future observations on our powerful telescopes.”

You can find out more about these early galaxies — and more — at the First Galaxies website.

Supersonic Starbirth Bubble Glows In Image From Two Telescopes

Stellar birth is visible in this image of HH 46/47 taken with the Spitzer Space Telescope and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ALMA

Talk about birth in the fast lane. Fresh observations of HH 46/47 — an area well-known for hosting a baby star — demonstrate material from the star pushing against the surrounding gas at supersonic speeds.

“HH” stands for Herbig-Haro, a type of object created “when jets shot out by newborn stars collide with surrounding material, producing small, bright, nebulous regions,” NASA stated. It’s a little hard to see what’s inside these regions, however, as they’re clouded by debris (specifically, gas and dust).

The Spitzer space telescope (which looks in infrared) and the massive Chilean Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) are both designed to look through the stuff to see what’s within. Here’s what they’ve spotted:

– ALMA: The telescope is showing that the gas is moving apart faster than ever believed, which could have echoes on how the star cloud is forming generally. “In turn, the extra turbulence could have an impact on whether and how other stars might form in this gaseous, dusty, and thus fertile, ground for star-making,” NASA added.

Another view of HH 46/47 with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Credit: ESO/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/H. Arce. Acknowledgements to Bo Reipurth

– Spitzer: Two supersonic blobs are emerging from the star in the middle and pushing against the gas, creating the big bubbles you can see here. The right-aiming blob has a lot more material to push through than the left one, “offering a handy compare-and-contrast setup for how the outflows from a developing star interact with their surroundings,” NASA stated.

“Young stars like our sun need to remove some of the gas collapsing in on them to become stable, and HH 46/47 is an excellent laboratory for studying this outflow process,” stated Alberto Noriega-Crespo, a scientist at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology.

“Thanks to Spitzer, the HH 46/47 outflow is considered one of the best examples of a jet being present with an expanding bubble-like structure.”

The ALMA observations of HH 46/47 were first revealed in detail this summer, in an Astrophysical Journal publication.

Source: NASA

September 27, 2013December 29, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Weekly Space Hangout – September 27, 2013: Buran, Comet ISON, Water on Mars

Is it Friday already? Then it’s time for another Weekly Space Hangout. Join a team of dedicated space journalists to discuss the big space and astronomy news stories that broke this week. This time around, we discussed Amy Shira Teitel’s Buran article, ISON Watch 2013, and the re-re-discovery of water on Mars.

Host: Fraser Cain

Journalists: Amy Shira Teitel, David Dickinson, Jason Major, Dr. Nicole Gugliucci, and Scott Lewis.

And here are the stories we covered:

The Life and Death of Buran
Comet ISON Viewing Guide
Water on Mars
Split Personality Pulsar
Asteroid Was Actually Space Junk
Cat’s Paw Nebula in APEX
Spitzer for Exoplanets
Mindblowing Spaceship Chart

We record the Weekly Space Hangout every Friday at 12:00 pm Pacific / 3:00 pm Eastern, 2000 GMT. You can watch from here on Universe Today, or over on Google+ or YouTube.