http://www.skynightly.com/index.html Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST en-us An international team of scientists has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. With an orbital period of about 28 days and a minimum mass 4.5 times that of the Earth, the planet orbits within the star's "habitable zone," where temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface. The researchers found evidence of at]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST New Horizons' flight to explore the Pluto system in July 2015 will be a historic accomplishment for the U.S. space program, for planetary science, and indeed for all humankind. Plans for the flyby are well under way - and now, so is an effort to petition the U.S. Postal Service to commemorate the historic achievements of New Horizons on a stamp. The mission team launches that petition toda]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Using models similar to those used in weapons research, scientists may soon know more about exoplanets, those objects beyond the realm of our solar system. In a new study, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators came up with new methods for deriving and testing the equation of state (EOS) of matter in exoplanets and figured out the mass-radius and mass-pressure relati]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Russian astronomers are planning to start their own search for planets outside the Solar System using ground-based telescopes, head of the Institute for Space Research Lev Zelyony said on Wednesday. "Scientists from the Pulkovo Observatory are planning to use ground-based instruments to study the transit of planets around their parent stars," Zelyony said at a roundtable meeting at RIA Nov]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST In the last two decades, the study of extrasolar planets - those that lie outside our own solar system - has become one of the most important fields of astrophysics. Now a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) team that includes Prof. Tsevi Mazeh of Tel Aviv University's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Director of the Wise Observatory has discovered two new ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Thanks to the presence of a natural "zoom lens" in space, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope got a uniquely close-up look at the brightest "magnified" galaxy yet discovered. This observation provides a unique opportunity to study the physical properties of a galaxy vigorously forming stars when the universe was only one-third its present age. A so-called gravitational lens is produced when spac]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST International astronomers said on Thursday they have found the fourth potentially habitable planet outside our solar system with temperatures that could support water and life about 22 light-years from Earth. The team analyzed data from the European Southern Observatory about a star known as GJ 667C, which is known as an M-class dwarf star and puts out much less heat than our Sun. Howev]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST One of the world's most colorful solar instruments is moving across country for a new life dissecting the chemistry of comets and stars. The Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) recently ended its career with the National Solar Observatory (NSO) at Kitt Peak, AZ and is being shipped to Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, with delivery scheduled for February 9th. There it will operate u]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Friday (Jan. 27, 2012), just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection (CME) seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Earth's magnetic field despite the fact that it was aimed away from our planet. According to University of New Hampshire scientists currently studying and modeling various aspects of ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Scientists say they have solved the mystery of why electrically-charged particles trapped in radiation belts thousands of kilometers above the Earth suddenly vanish and then reappear during periods of heightened solar activity. NASA-funded researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) tracked the electrons using data collected simultaneously with 11 different spacecraft. ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST Hydrogen molecules may act as a kind of energy sink that strengthens the magnetic grip that causes sunspots, according to scientists from Hawaii and New Mexico using a new infrared instrument on an old telescope. "We think that molecular hydrogen plays an important role in the formation and evolution of sunspots," said Dr. Sarah Jaeggli, a recent University of Hawaii at Manoa graduate whos]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST A camera aboard one of NASA's twin Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) lunar spacecraft has returned its first unique view of the far side of the moon. MoonKAM, or Moon Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students, will be used by students nationwide to select lunar images for study. GRAIL consists of two identical spacecraft, recently named Ebb and Flow, each of which is equi]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST A great magnetic bubble surrounds the solar system as it cruises through the galaxy. The sun pumps the inside of the bubble full of solar particles that stream out to the edge until they collide with the material that fills the rest of the galaxy, at a complex boundary called the heliosheath. On the other side of the boundary, electrically charged particles from the galactic wind blow by, ]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST When scientists discovered two great swaths of radiation encircling Earth in the 1950s, it spawned over-the-top fears about "killer electrons" and space radiation effects on Earthlings. The fears were soon quieted: the radiation doesn't reach Earth, though it can affect satellites and humans moving through the belts. Nevertheless, many mysteries about the belts - now known as the Van Allen Radia]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST After years of relative somnolence, the sun is beginning to stir. By the time it's fully awake in about 20 months, the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., charged with researching and tracking solar activity, will have at their disposal a greatly enhanced forecasting capability. Goddard's Space Weather Laboratory recently received support under NASA's Space Techno]]> Sat, 04 FEB 2012 21:40:09 AEST