News

See Aurora Now!!!!!!! Maybe tomorrow and the next day too!

A team of UK astronomers working with international partners has produced the first ever image of an astronomical object using high energy gamma rays, helping to solve a 100 year old mystery - the origin of cosmic rays. Their research, published in the Journal Nature on November 4th, was carried out using the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), an array of four telescopes, in Namibia, South-West Africa...

Astronomers using the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) have overcome longstanding technical hurdles to map the sky at little-explored radio frequencies that may provide a tantalizing look deep into the early Universe. The scientists have released images and data covering half of the sky visible from the VLA, and hope to complete their survey within a year.

An Open University research student will reveal her findings on what caused one of the world’s ‘Big Five’ mass extinctions at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting in Denver, USA, this month.

Hubble Spots Rare Triple Eclipse on Jupiter

Making an extra effort to image a faint, gigantic corkscrew traced by fast protons and electrons shot out from a mysterious microquasar paid off for a pair of astrophysicists who gained new insights into the beast's inner workings and also resolved a longstanding dispute over the object's distance.

An international team of astronomers is announcing today that they have identified the probable surviving companion star to a titanic supernova explosion witnessed in the year 1572 by the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of that era.

Last One until 2007...... What a beautiful Lunar Eclipse and starry background visible during totality.

Dark matter continues to confound astronomers as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory demonstrated with the detection of an extensive envelope of dark matter around an isolated elliptical galaxy. This discovery conflicts with optical data suggesting a lack of dark matter around similar galaxies, and raises questions about how galaxies acquire and keep such dark matter halos...

Long hidden behind a thick veil of haze, Titan, the only known moon with an atmosphere, is ready for its close-up on Oct. 26, 2004. This visit by the Cassini spacecraft may settle intense speculation about whether this moon of Saturn harbors oceans of liquid methane and ethane beneath its coat of clouds.

Gravity Probe B, a NASA spacecraft to test two predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity has achieved a major milestone with the completion of the first phase of its mission and the transition into the science phase. The GP-B mission is now one step closer to shedding new light on the fundamental properties of our universe.

The UN gets a lot of press concerning affairs here on earth. Did you know they also have an Outer Space component?

The Huygens probe will usher in 2005 with its landmark mission at Titan. After a seven-year journey strapped to the side of the Cassini Orbiter, Huygens will be set free on Dec. 25, 2004. The Probe will coast for 21 days en route to Titan.

Just when astronomers thought they might have dug up the last of our galaxy's "fossils," they've discovered a new one in the galactic equivalent of our own backyard.

Orion's 10" SkyQuest dobsonian mounted scope caught this reviewer's fancy and he shared his hits and misses on this scope in this week's winning review...